Five Parishes Show, 79th Year

The Five Parishes show is in its 79th year, and took place earlier today at Fingringhoe Ranges, to the south of Colchester. It’s the first one we’ve been to, and we enjoyed it – until the rain came!

The show started at 11:00am and was scheduled to run until 5:00pm, with the main ring having a couple of appearances of military vehicles, Suffolk Punches, and birds of prey display. Other rings gave children the opportunity to try archery, there were fighting displays from armoured knights (one of whom I christened Sir Summer Solstice, as he was the shortest (k)night I have ever seen!). Tucked away, somewhat out of the way, at one end of the ground were clog dancers and the Colchester History Alive! troupe.

It was a windy day, perfect for flying kites. Fortunately, there were kite flyers there!

There were plenty of stalls, including some selling antiques and knick knacks, someone from Alresford selling pickled peppers and the like, some guinea pigs and quails to be oohed over, a couple of plant and herb stalls, and, most importantly a number of food stalls (we had the hog roast!), and most important of all, a beer tent, with a couple of barrels of beer from the West Mersea Brewery – their ‘Yo Boy!’ was our choice.

The main tent had a wide variety of garden produce, cooking, and handicrafts that had been entered for the competition – we’re tempted to enter something next year, as it is the nearest country show to us.

The dark clouds had been scudding by all day, but at 3:00 the heavens opened, and it was a mad dash to the car park. Here are a few pictures taken prior to the deluge :