Plenty on offer at festive market
VILLAGERS and stall holders braved the freezing weather on Saturday to get into the festive spirit at the Woolton Hill Christmas market.
Hundreds of people throughout the morning and early afternoon donned their coats, scarves and woolly hats to see what was on offer at the village hall.
Mulled cider and bacon butties were available for the early visitors, while there was plenty of tea and coffee inside for market-goers to warm their hands on.
There were a total of 22 stalls, after a couple of dropouts due to the weather, selling a whole range of goods, including home-made fudge, gin, local charcoal, ceramics, cheese and jewellery.
Among the stalls was Richard Willis Wood Turning, who’d set up outdoors displaying a range of hand-made wooden products, including pens, bowls and breadboards.
Speaking at the market, Mr Willis, who moved to Woolton Hill from Newbury in May, said: “It’s going really well – people have been interested in the pens and other small items.
“It’s a hobby and when you finish up with 70 pens you think, ‘what can I do with them?’”
The next stall along from Mr Willis was Hillside House Honey, run by Adrian Doyle – who chairs the Newbury and District Beekeepers Association.
He said: “It’s been a lovely day, despite the weather.
“We’ve sold a lot of honey, beeswax and soaps, so it’s been a good day and I’ve really enjoyed it.
“I’m a beekeeper first rather than a honey producer, so it’s good to speak to local people about bees and pollinators and what bees produce for us.
“One in three calories we consume come from a pollinator.
“If we lose bees we lose all our food.
“Markets are the most receptive – it’s people of a similar ethos at markets.”
As well as the stalls, there was a treasure hunt where
children had to find letters on various stalls in order to make a word – ‘snowflake’ – and win a prize.
One of the organisers of the event was Sally Fenwick, who said she was delighted by the number of people who had made the trip to the market.
She added: “Despite having a few stalls pull out due to the weather we’ve still had a great turnout, and the turnout from the village has been amazing.
“It’s been packed in there and apparently you can’t park anywhere near.
“We were a little bit worried about the weather because we’ve had a couple of quiet ones.
“May was amazing, but we had far fewer in July and September so we were concerned about the weather, but it’s been amazing.”