Things to do in North East England: the Northumberland County Fayre

Monday 31st May was May Bank Holiday and therefore by tradition the day of the Northumberland County Show. This is held at Tynedale Rugby Club in Corbridge and is conveniently next to Corbridge railway station on the Tyne Valley line. That means it's easy to get there but.... The train service from Newcastle, which we got at 10am, was packed. Though the train stopped at all the stations on the way (except Blaydon) each station was packed as well and very few people were able to get on board. If youare taking the train, my suggestion is you get there as early as possible.

If you drive there, the neighbouring fields are used as a car park. The first time we went, which was, admittedly, 20 years ago, saw us take nearly an hour to get out of the car park. We have never since taken the car so I have no recent experience to report on.

I didn't take the video camera with me this year so the following video is of last year's show. It still gives a good flavour of what to expect:



The Northumberland Show is, as you would expect, directed at those involved in agriculture. Nevertheless, there's plenty to see and do even if you don't know the back end of a sheep from the front. We had a merry time checking out rotovators (see my allotment and food blog www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com)

We left at about 2pm and people were still pouring in at that point. They would have missed by then most of the livestock, horse, sheep-shearing, jam making etc judging by then. Even so, there were attractions for just about every taste, from falconry to wool spinning. And just about every local government, quango and commercial enterprise you could think of with some kind of role in the county was exhibiting. I got a load of informaiton on bee and hen keeping.

Here are some of the photos I took on Monday: