Alexandra Burke, the Freemasons and Fatboy Slim will headline the festival in the park.

BBC: Brighton and Hove Pride gets under way

There's also the sense that Freemasons are "weird", says James McConnachie, author of the Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories.

BBC: Would you want to be a Freemason?

Many of the men who supported the revolutions in France and America were freemasons, and the group became linked with rebellion.

ECONOMIST: Freemasonry

It was the Freemasons' turn and the narrative of a secret society plotting in the shadows has never gone away, says Cohen.

BBC: Would you want to be a Freemason?

But in Britain, freemasons have worked hard to stay on the right side of authority, enlisting members of the aristocracy and royal family as protectors.

ECONOMIST: Freemasonry

Since a bestselling book published in 1983 argued that freemasons exert a malign influence in public life, people have tried to force freemasons to declare themselves.

ECONOMIST: Freemasonry

Money for the work came from vigorous fundraising by local residents plus contributions from environmental body WREN, the Pilgrim Trust, Leche Trust, Maud Elkington and the Lincolnshire Freemasons.

BBC: Lincolnshire

One sign of the times is that the lodge of medical freemasons that met for years at London's St Thomas's Hospital has recently been told to convene elsewhere.

ECONOMIST: Freemasonry

Dr Coleman said Lord Woolf had made it clear that anyone involved in a judicial capacity must declare whether they are freemasons - he said the GMC now complied with this.

BBC: GMC names freemason members

The average initiate is in his late 40s, according to John Hamill, the lodge's head of communications, and, as recruitment falls and old members die off, the number of freemasons in Britain is shrinking.

ECONOMIST: Freemasonry