Poor weather didn't deter crowds at Eastwell Fete

Crowds gathered in the village despite the weather on Saturday to enjoy a variety of events from music to magicians.

Around 900 people attended the annual fete which aimed to raise funds for St Michael and All Angels Church.

Sue Watford, church warden, said: “In spite of the weather and the cancellations, it was a very happy and cheerful fete with virtually the whole village involved in some way or another.

“One of star attractions was a bughouse, ‘Buggingham Palace,’ that children helped build in the churchyard. The idea was to attract a wide variety of bug tenants such as woodlice, snails, slugs, centipedes, earwigs, spiders and beetles.

“However, due to the weather we couldn’t expand on the building with bug quizzes and other activities because everything blew all over the place.”

Other highlights included a smaller than usual street market, vintage and classic cars, a dog show, magician Damien Surr, Paul Baker of Merrie Noyse, the St Wulfram bellringers and Mr Wong with his Wuhan gong.

Sue added: “The closest estimation I can give of profit is around the £3,000 mark, which is absolutely wonderful considering the gate takings were 0.66 per cent down on last year’s fete.”