Last Saturday, Steve and I hopped on the bus to Cullompton to visit the Cullompton Spring Fest. The first event of its kind held in the town with the hope that it will be the start of more to come. A food, craft and music festival with events at various locations across the town.
We arrived at about 11am after a bus journey from Exeter that lasted about 35-40 minutes. The bus pulled up right in the thick of the main market in the High Street. We decided to look around the main food market first before exploring the crafts. We mooched around the stalls trying various samples as we went along. Our first purchase was made at the Bloomberry Juice stall. They make and sell 100% natural juices and flavour them with botanicals like hibiscus, lavender, rose and elderflower. We tried many but plumped for the sweetness of the apple, blueberry and lavender. A subtle flavour of lavender shines through and the blueberry gives the juice a beautifully sweet flavour. We were told that the juices are great topped up with sparkling water or a little prosecco if you fancied an alcoholic twist.
From the juice it was on to the Tiverton country markets stall. Lots of homemade jams, marmalades and chutneys on offer but the homemade cakes caught my eye. They had a wonderfully moist looking ginger cake which had my name on it. At 50 pence a slice I felt like I had stepped back in time. How lovely that these ladies running the stall were selling their wares at affordable prices for all. Good on them.
We carried on browsing the stalls and picked up some beautiful speckled eggs and some lovely handcrafted, sweet cider from Ridgeway Cider. Steve consumed most of it that night and said it was amazing!
By this point it was lunch time so we thought we would head down the road to see what the food stalls had to offer. I had my eye on the bright yellow caravan that was owned by Stinky Vintage. Lots of cheesey goodies on offer like cheese shortbread, scones, cheese straws and toasties. I decided that a cheese scone filled with homemade pear and plum chutney and some vintage cheddar was just what the doctor had ordered. Served with some salty potato chips and a little salad. It was a perfect lunch.
We wondered down to The Walronds. Most of the hot food stalls were situated here. Pizza, sausages etc. However Steve wanted something with a bit more spice. He opted for a Mexican tortilla wrap filled with steak and chorizo chilli, salads, sour cream and grated manchego cheese from the Street Food Southwest stall. We pottered around The Walronds whilst nibbling on our lunches and taking in what the other stalls had to offer. After finishing our lunches we made our way back up to the main market area for one final look to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. We were just about to cross the road to get our bus back to Exeter when we saw a stall selling garden plants. With Spring upon us, its now time for us to get out in our little courtyard and make it look pretty for the upcoming summer season. This stall had a few pretty plants that had to come home with us to help create our city courtyard haven. I’m so glad we made one final tour of the stalls.
We spent a good few hours at Spring Fest and thouroughly enjoyed it. We stopped off and watched a Chinese cookery demonstration that I found very informative. Thank goodness the weather was kind. Having fine weather definately makes a positive difference to events like this. Here’s hoping that the organisers felt it was a success and decide to make it an annual event. I feel that it created a lovely, positive buzz in the town which can only be a good thing.
Keep your eyes peeled for future events by following the organisers on Twitter @SpringfestCully or Facebook at Cullompton Springfest.