Asparagus is a highly regarded vegetable grown in the Vale of Evesham and celebrated in style with an annual festival. This part of rural Worcestershire benefits from perfect growing conditions with asparagus being widely available from late April to late June.
Getting there: The Vale of Evesham is located in Worcestershire, West Midlands 14 miles south-east of Worcester and 87 miles north-west of London and just over an hour’s drive from both Birmingham and Oxford.
The Asparagus Festival begins on St. George’s Day (23rd April) with a six week celebration kicking off with the opening ceremony centred around the Fleece Inn, in the village of Bretforton near Evesham.
The event draws large crowds from far and wide and this year we were invited to come along and take part in the celebrations and naturally jumped at the chance. Arriving bright and early we started our day with traditional cooked breakfasts accompanied of course with fresh asparagus. Also on offer were bacon and asparagus baps and asparagus eggs benedict which were also delicious, I was reliably informed.
The Fleece is a quintessential country inn steeped in history with low ceilings, stone floors and original oak beams. The building was originally constructed in the early 15th century by a farmer named Byrd who was granted a licence to serve alcohol. Ownership passed through several generations of Byrd women until 1977 when his great-great-granddaughter Lola Taplin bequeathed the pub to the National Trust in her will. The pub remains largely unchanged and pays homage to the locally grown asparagus which features on its menu as evidenced by our breakfast fare.
Landlord Nigel Smith has successfully run the pub now for over 20 years and not only has he made it the heart and soul of village life but he’s also found time to ring the church bells and be an active member of the local Morris dancing troupe.
Breakfasts consumed, it was all starting to get underway outdoors with the eccentric shenanigans ramping up a notch as the festival characters put in an appearance. First we said hello to Gus the Asparagus Man who made his debut at the opening event back in 2006 and has proudly promoted the locally grown vegetable wearing his green and purple spear headed costume ever since.
A local farmer by trade, asparagus has turned him into something of a local celebrity as he’s even been part of a delegation to the European Parliament in Brussels along with a man dressed as St. George. Besides raising awareness for the vegetable in European markets, the trip was designed to thank the EU for granting Vale of Evesham asparagus Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). This has placed the vegetable in an elite group of food and drink that includes Champagne, Jersey Royal Potatoes and Parmesan cheese.
Other festival characters included the Asparafairy and Jemima Packington, the world’s only Asparamancer. What is an asparamancer you may well ask, well apparently it is someone who is gifted with the ability of predicting the future using nothing more than a handful of asparagus. Speaking to Jemima, she explained that over the years she’s made dozens of accurate predictions including sporting events and celebrity scandals and all by tossing the spears into the air and interpreting how they landed!
The festival originated from a fund raising asparagus auction for the local Bretforton Silver Band to raise money for their instruments. Since then the festival has grown from strength to strength with an annual auction raising money for local charities.
The Silver Band were in action on the day setting up their chairs in the pub’s courtyard and entertaining the crowds with a medley of jolly tunes. Following on from this, the local Morris Dancing troupe took central stage with Landlord Nigel Smith joining in with some of the dances.
Morris Dancing at the Fleece Inn, Bretforton
For those of you unfamiliar with Morris Dancing, it’s an old English tradition usually performed by groups of six or eight dancers. We gathered around watching as they danced together waving their handkerchiefs, clashing their sticks and occasionally clapping. The dancers wear white shirts with black breeches and have bell pads on their shins and are accompanied by musicians. We often used to see Morris Dancers performing on village greens and around Maypoles but nowadays there are sadly fewer troupes around.
The entertainment continued with some folk singing and although we didn’t have time to participate, aspara-yoga was taking place in the pub’s apple orchard. Two alpacas had been brought along to join in the celebrations from Cotswold Manor Alpacas. They were so cuddly and adorable with their thick, soft coats that I would have loved to have taken one of them for a walk as I’d recently enjoyed a stroll with a llama up in Derbyshire.
The main emphasis of National Asparagus Day is celebrated by blessing the first-cut round of asparagus which is traditionally bound in willow. At 12.30 p.m. the round was ceremoniously taken through the Cotswold countryside accompanied by a fleet of classic Morgan cars and I was so excited to be part of the 2023 procession.
I was assigned to a gleaming blue Morgan 4/4 classic car hand built in 2018 and driven by Barry, a retired gentleman from Cheltenham. He was absolutely lovely and we both felt like royalty as we made our way out of the pub’s car park lined several deep with people waving and taking photos.
Aside from enjoying a few rides in my friend’s soft top Mini Clubman, I’d never been in an open top car. With the hood down and the wind in my hair I adored every minute of our 25 minute journey, a memory that will last with me forever.
We’d come to the Wayside Farmshop and Tea Room where we tucked into asparagus hot dogs and blossom cream teas accompanied by pots of tea and glasses of local blossom cider.
Barry joined us at our table and after introducing him to my son, we all chatted happily along together as if we’d known each other for years.
To conclude the celebrations, the first of the season’s round of asparagus was presented to Chris Slight, the manager of the Dog’s Trust re-homing centre located just across the road from the Wayside Tea Room.
The aim of the charity is to find caring homeowners for hundreds of dogs each year and they brought along three adorable Bichon Frise puppies who had been named Gus, George and Blossom in honour of the Asparagus Festival and Blossom Trail.
The puppies had been taken into care by the Dog’s Trust as they had been illegally smuggled into the country having been confiscated and quarantined. They were so adorable that I’m sure they would be snapped up to loving homes before too long.
Before leaving, we popped into the farm shop for a look around. Beautifully arranged shelves were filled with fresh local produce, jams, chutneys, homemade sausages and local cider with an attractive cafe next door to sample their homemade delicacies.
Our lovely day experiencing everything asparagus had drawn to a close and after waving off the convoy of Morgan classic cars we boarded a coach back to the hotel to collect our cars. If you’d like to find out more about the Vale of Evesham asparagus celebrations and perhaps be inspired to visit, more details can be found here.
During our visit we were guests of Worcestershire’s Vale and Spa and as always, all views and opinions are my own.
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