28th September 2024
Oxton, NG25 0TD
Horticulture & Home Produce
Our Horticultural & Home Produce marquee is a celebration of home-produced horticulture, food and crafts.
We are always delighted to welcome new competitors and we hope that this page gives you the confidence to enter one of our classes and join our growing, and supportive, community.
We’ve put together a few tips below to help you to successfully enter the Show and to learn more about our section of The Southwell Ploughing Match & Show.
“What a fantastic show! Got to be one of the best! Visitor numbers must have broken records! We've had a fabulous day! Massive thank you to everyone involved in the running of this wonderful country show. Well done to all participants, we've loved it!” S. Harrington
Our Community
The Horticulture & Home Produce marquee showcases a wide range of talent across all ages year on year. We now have a wonderful community of followers on Facebook where you can find regular updates and advice.
Our Sponsors
We are so grateful to our sponsors who support the prizes and promotion of our Show.
We would like to give our special thanks to Brown & Co J H Walter for their generous sponsorship of the Floral Art Classes and to Hollygirt School for sponsoring the Childrens’ Classes.
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Children’s Classes
Our classes are designed to be age-appropriate and fun. They’re a great summer holiday project or a relatively easy test of cooking skills.
To help make things a little easier, some classes have text or images to copy.
Class 8: Colour in your own special bug – Download Template
Scarecrow Gathering
Our Scarecrow Gathering is intended to be a fun and joyful reflection on what makes our community so special; we hope that it will attract lots of entries from families, social groups, fundraising teams as well as the businesses who are at the show.
There are two classes:
Class 59: Open Class (group & family entries): A scarecrow of your choosing (witty, fun or poignant, but never rude)
Class 60: Business Class: A scarecrow of your choosing (please don’t leave leaflets or anything that could fly away in a breeze)
Horticulture & Home Produce
How to Enter
There are few things to keep in mind before you begin:
Your application to enter classes needs to be made using the correct entry form.
The entry form for our part of the Show must be completed no later than two weeks before the Show. This is always on the Friday at 5pm. You can enter classes in three ways:
Payment:
Your entry form should be submitted with the correct entry fee. Payment can be made by cheque, cash or postal order. If you complete your application using the online service, you will need to pay by credit card.
Any cheques should be written out to ‘The Southwell & District Agricultural Society’
After you have sent your entry:
Entries can be made at any time after the Schedule is published and before the entry deadline.
You should not expect to hear from us until a few weeks before the Show. If you don’t hear anything 10 days before the Show, please get in touch.
You will receive the class competitor cards in the post before the Show together with more information about where to park, how to bring your entries and what to expect on the day of the show.
Please take care to follow the instructions in the Schedule – particularly noting any special arrangements required for particular entries and please do read the Rules in the back of the Schedule.
Show Day
To help us on Show Day, could you please be aware of the following:
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Please check your entry cards are correct and that you bring these cards with you to the Show.
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Please do not make any changes to your entry cards; we will make any changes on Show day.
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On arriving at the Show, please find a steward to help you stage your entries. All exhibits must have a sticky label with your class exhibitor number attached.
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Please do not leave your exhibit until an exhibitor number label has been attached (you will have a different exhibitor number in each class).
We know that your plans may change and we’re happy to help if we can.
Time table:
8.00-10.00 am All entries should be staged.
9.50 am The area will be cleared for Judging.
10.10 am Judging commences.
12.15 pm (approx) Marquee should reopen (depending upon the volume of entries).
4.15 pm The earliest time that entries can be removed by competitors.
5.30 pm All items should have been cleared from the Tent.
Prizes & Sponsors
We are so grateful to our sponsors who support the prizes and promotion of our Show.
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Prize Money
Prize money will be available from 4.15pm onwards and can be collected from the Secretary’s Desk in the tent. There will be sweets for children who have entered classes but not been awarded a prize. Any money not collected will be donated to the Society. Please produce your prize card when collecting prize money.
All classes excluding scarecrows & floral art): First Prize: £5, Second Prize £3, Third Prize £1
Scarecrows & Floral Art: First Prize £25, Second Prize £15, Third Prize £10
Trophies
We have a number of wonderful trophies that are awarded to winners in most categories – there’s a trophy for the child with the best handwriting, Children’s Pet winners, the best baker in the ‘Man in the Kitchen’ class as well as lots of baking, preserves and horticultural trophies. These are for you to look after for the whole year and arrangements to return the trophies will be shared with you when you collect your award at 4.00 pm (or thereabouts) on the day of the Show.
The 2021 Horticultural & Home Craft tent was a one-off. It was very different and surrounded by a large gathering of scarecrows. We hoped to celebrate everything that the countryside and our home-grown talents can produce. Our exhibits were planned to be big, bright and to encourage everyone to take part.
