Organisers of Bromyard’s annual Hop Festival are delighted
that local community benefactor Clive Richards has agreed to support this
year’s event, which takes place on Saturday 30th August. Mr Richards recently wrote to the Hop
Festival Committee: ‘Thank you for
organising such a super day that the World Championship Hop Pocket Race turned
out to be’.
In discussions with Hop Festival chairman Ian Raven, Mr
Richards asked the Committee to ensure that St Michael’s Hospice benefited
from the huge crowds on Festival Day, and went on to say ’...as long as there
was a charity involved, I would be happy to help sponsor such an event’.
Clive Richards (pictured) joins existing
sponsors Wye Valley Brewery and hop merchants Charles Faram in helping fund-raise
to ensure the Hop Festival can go on. Teme Valley Brewery also give support as
part of regional hop-growers’ organisation Hopshires, and Mayfields and
Hobsons’ breweries chip in to add their ales to the selection on sale in
Bromyard’s hostelries at Festival time. The Festival is also supported by generous donations and advertising from many of the town’s traders and
businesses. The event brings large numbers of visitors to the town centre and
the Town Green for the craft fair, displays of rural crafts, and folk and rock
music, and culminates in Bromyard’s unique Hop Pocket Race up and down Broad St
and High St. The 2014 Hop Festival will follow the pattern established in
previous years, but organisers promise ‘bigger and even better’.
The day will once again run from 10am, with a much-expanded
Parade of vintage and horse-drawn vehicles taking place at 1pm; performances at
the Conquest Theatre and on the Town Green of a brand-new community play about
the mechanisation of the hop-yards in the 1960s; and it’s planned for the first
time to have street performers to entertain the crowds.
Thanks in good part to support from popular BBC
Hereford & Worcester presenter Toni McDonald (Pictured) who was the Hop Festival’s special
guest and prize-presenter, the 2014 Festival attracted an estimated crowd of
3500 who packed the town centre to watch a record field of twenty-four teams of
runners compete for the Hop Pocket World Championship race. Organisers are
urging teams to get their entries in early for this year’s Race.
More information here.