For anyone feeling the absence of Glastonbury this summer, We Out Here was the perfect substitute. The festival took place this weekend in the grounds of St Giles House, the Earl of Shaftesbury’s estate in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset. Like Glastonbury, WOH invests in the non-party side of things - sauna, lake, wellness, art and talks - as much as in the superbly curated music stages, which have Gilles Peterson written all over it.

In its seventh year, it’s the perfect size with 25,000 milling around between the 400 live acts and DJs across 15 stages - large tents, hay-bale surrounded 'Rhythm corner', the bowl’ stage, open-air forest dance floors… And it’s extremely good with kids, without being a kids festival. The crowd had an open and relaxed vibe, and the programming, which spans soul, afro, hip-hop, house and related genres, draws a bigger mix of races than I’ve seen at a non-specialist festival. The more people that I spoke to, the more it felt like much of Peckham’s sub-culture and inhabitants had headed there.

The curators successfully manage the transition from jazz in the early afternoon, to electronic, to dub, and finishing up with Drum and Bass and House into the wee hours (12pm on Thursday and Sunday; 4am on Friday and Saturday). And so much more. There were more highlights than I can list here: iconic jazz-rap trio Digable Planets on Thursday; Joy Crookes on the main stage on Friday, Adam F leading the rave on Friday night, before half the festival tried to squeeze into the Beat Hotel stage, which was rammed with bouncing ravers every night, drinking strong, smoky cocktails made with Ilegal Mezcal, and spilling out into the outside area for a break before returning to the packed dancefloor. I spent many hours in the Love Dancing tent: Daniella Dee, Poly Ritmo, Rohan Rakhit - the atmosphere was such that my ear-defended three-year old was dancing along on my shoulders too.

The jazz/hiphop/afrobeats collective Steam Down set the tone at the Lush Life stage on Saturday afternoon, followed by the brilliant Jamie Woon on the Main Stage, and later Peven Everett closing the Main stage with a powerful energiser. The whispers all weekend were about a secret set for Sunday, which was, as rumoured, the legendary producer and DJ Four Tet who closed the Rhythm Corner with Gilles Peterson. In a crowded festival space - there were five festivals happening across the UK on the same weekend - it stands out, not just for the music but for the atmosphere.

Recovery was taken in the lakeside Wellness area, which at one point on Sunday morning resembled a giant nap space as hundreds of people lay under the trees, did low-octane yoga classes, re-centred themselves in sound baths and went swimming in the lake, or had a sauna. Before the energy really ramped up for the evening, the Talks Tent was pretty packed whether for the poetry performances or discussions about community; all under the umbrella of ‘Togetherness’.

The theme of Togetherness ran deep at WOH. When Englishmen first meet they talk of the weather, said Samuel Johnson in the 1800s. Here, the talk was dominated by praising the vibe. Of course, there was the odd outlier holding a loud afterparty in their tent until 9am, but less so than other campsites - it felt generally more respectful.

That respect came across for every festivalgoer. The Disco Shed and Noise stages in the Family Area were no afterthought. Neither one is ‘family’ music, and yet they nailed set after set of quality tunes all day, which had parents dancing in the sunshine while the kids had skateboard lessons with Scorcha School, drumming workshops with Mbilla, made their own pizzas at Ruth’s Kitchen, and painted towering sculptures… It was a safe haven for the kids to have as much feral freedom as everyone else in the festival - heaven.