Orton Celebrates 100 Markets

11-05-2010

Orton Farmers’ Market celebrates with villagers

Saturday saw the 100th Farmers Market in Orton and there were celebrations and a special cake as well as a new stallholder to join the team.

Orton Farmers’ Market celebrates with villagers
Saturday saw the 100th Farmers Market in Orton and there were celebrations and a special cake as well as a new stallholder to join the team.

from left, David Grainger, Sturat Lambert, Jane Emmerson, Shelley Riddell, Barbara Dunning, David Knipe, Steven Dunning, Dianne Halliday, Helen Boardman, Leanne Duerden, Dorothy Jackson, James Jackson, Bea Bainbridge, Rowland Woof, Bob Kitchen, Bill Pimlott, Chris Keogh, Joice Pimlott

100th celebrations
To mark the 100th Farmers’ Market, stallholders had invited the villagers of Orton to a post-Market party with a fantastic buffet spread of local produce and a special cake, made by Jackie Mayes of Brampton near Appleby.
Leanne and Bea cutting the celebration cake
“Orton is such a peaceful place most of the time and we realise how much the villagers put up with once a month when we’re here,” says Market Coordinator, Leanne Duerden.  “We decided that it would be good to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued patience and support.  Invitations went to every house in the village and it was great to see so many people in the Market Hall on Saturday afternoon.”

At the end of the party, Beatrice Bainbridge, one of the original Orton stallholders from 2000, helped Leanne to cut the cake and pieces were then given out as guests left the party.

New for the 100th
For Lynn Ballantine Dykes of Wardhall Dairy near Wigton the 100th Market turned out to be her first at Orton.  “I’ve been a regular at the summer markets in Pooley Bridge with our cheeses,” she says, “but it was lovely to be at Orton for the first time and to share the celebrations.”

Lynn and her husband, Thomas, set up the dairy in 2007 and they have ten different types of sheep, cattle, pigs and goats.  Their range of cheeses includes Wardhall Blue (blue goats cheese), Wardhall Ivory (demi-sel cultured goat butter), Parsonby (cows cheese), Prospect (fresh goat cheese), Leathers Gill (mature goats cheese flavoured with green peppercorns) and Gilcrux (matured cows’ milk cheese).

The next Orton Farmers’ Market opens at 9.30am and runs until 2pm on Saturday 12 June and is followed by the local Greenholme Show nearby (starting at 1pm).  Refreshments are available throughout the day in the Market Hall, at All Saints’ Church and also at Kennedy’s Chocolates café and The George Hotel.  

The next Pooley Bridge Farmers’ Market is in the centre of the village on Sunday 30 May, starting at 10.00am.

Orton Farmers’ Limited was set up as a community enterprise company and has been operating as an accredited monthly Farmers’ Market in Orton since 2001, winning the National Farmers’ Market of the Year Award in 2005.  The Market happens on the second Saturday of every month and can include up to 40 different stallholders, all of them coming from within a 50 mile radius of Orton and many of them from the immediate community, including local farmers.  See www.ortonfarmers.co.uk for details.

For further information on Wardhall Dairy, see www.wardhalldairy.co.uk.

For further information on Orton Farmers’ Market, please contact: