Dros 25,000 o ymwelwyr yng Ngŵyl Tyddyn a Gardd Frenhinol Cymru
Arthur Davies of Thompson and Morgan, Ipswich, Suffolk, receiving the Best
in Show award from the Royal Welsh Lady Ambassador, Teleri Jenkins Davies, for
their exhibit of vegetables produced out of season.
The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society’s Smallholder and Garden Festival once again confirmed its popularity as a spring weekend event by attracting 25,179 visitors to the showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells.
The attendance, boosted by a record number of 13,613 on the opening day, was nearly 3000 up on last year’s total of 22,258.
This was the 10th Festival to be staged by the RWAS and the number of visitors reflected the increasing interest in ‘growing your own’ and the rise of the urban allotment holder as well as rural smallholders.
Trade stands at the Festival – there were over 350 on the showground including those selling flowers, shrubs, vegetables and garden equipment – reported brisk business and there was keen interest in talks staged at the Festival’s Speakers Corner in the showground’s South Glamorgan Exhibition Hall where subjects such as growing vegetables in containers and feeding poultry the natural way were among those on the agenda.
“For those seeking the dream of their own smallholding as a more sustainable way of life there was an abundance of ideas at the Festival,” said Royal Welsh Assistant Company Secretary, Caron W Evans. “The Green Horizons exhibition and the food and floral halls were as vibrant as ever and the livestock and premier open dog show were well supported along with the newly featured Welsh Federation spring show of poultry and waterfowl.”
Dr Fred Slater, the Honorary Festival Director, described the Festival as the best one to date and a fitting thank-you to the efforts of its chairman, Emlyn Kinsey Pugh, who was retiring after 10 years in office.
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