Dorset County Show...

Dorset County Show is a fun-filled spectacular for all the family.

For two days at the end of each summer, town meets country on the beautiful fringes of Dorchester, Dorset’s famous and historic County Town.

Formerly the “Dorchester Show”, this annual must-see event follows centuries of rural tradition that sees farming communities come together to exhibit the best of their produce and labours.

Like many other country shows, Dorset’s County show is built around a core of traditional competitions and events. Farmers from near and far bring their animals and crops to compete against “rivals” old and new to see whose is the best. Or at least whose impress the judges most on the day!

Around this platform for farmers to strut their stuff on whose bull is the beefiest, whose lamb lambiest, whose dairy cows milkiest and corn corniest is an array of other interesting stuff, with something to appeal to all tastes and ages.

In days of old, agricultural shows like this would have attracted all sorts of merchants, hawkers and fairground attractions. And the modern show is no different.

Among the massive marquees displaying everything from local foods to cookery and handicraft competitions, you’ll find all sorts of local agricultural supply companies large and small, which may sound a bit dull if you’re not a farmer, until you realise that this means more tractors and diggers in one place than you can possibly imagine! Small boy heaven!

And if we’re sticking to gender stereotypes, there’s also a whole range of equestrian events, from ponies and pony clubs through show jumping and breed classes to horse and carriage driving. Small girl heaven!

There’s also a fully-fledged fairground with the usual rides as well as areas devoted to more quintessentially rural activities from hunting, shooting and fishing to ferret racing.

And there are beer tents and food tents and tented shopping aisles selling everything from furniture and spa baths to holistic healing bracelets and scented candles.

So whether you’re young or old, boy or girl there is bound to be something that will keep your interest or drive your imagination. And when you’ve tired of walking, allow yourself to gravitate towards the main ring, where the exhibits and displays will walk past you instead of the other way round.

Here you’ll find yourself entertained by parades of animals and machines; competitions and awards ceremonies; informational displays and bits of fun. You’ll also find the main ring attraction. Each year there’ll be at least one, and sometimes more, headline display. Maybe monster trucks. Maybe motorcycle stunts. Maybe diggers that dance.

Whatever the particular “star” of the show in the main ring you can guarantee that each year will bring something different to thrill and entertain the crowds.

If you think all this is nothing new, that’s only partly true yet entirely the point. Events like Dorset County Show are nothing new. But they are a tangible link both with our food and how it's produced, and also with centuries of rural tradition. They also provide a great insight into how much our world and food production has changed and yet how reliant we all still are on processes that are essentially unchanged. When it comes to the crunch, farming equals food and food is essential.

Across Britain and the world there are gatherings large and small just like the Dorset County Show, and yet all are different.

Dorset County Show is unique for lots of reasons, but none more so than its location. While locals of a certain age still think of the show’s home at Cokers Frome as the “new” show ground, it is a natural site for a show that brings together people from town and country. It is also fitting that the site sits beside the River Frome, overlooked by Dorchester, the “Casterbridge” of World renowned local author, Thomas Hardy.

Hardy used Dorchester and this stretch of the Frome as backdrop to several of his stories. He also described and used rural gatherings such as this as scenes for key events in his books.

Although much has changed since Hardy’s day, he would recognise both the place and much of what still happens at the show. What he and the rest of our ancestors might find strange, along with modern electronic gizmos and massive machines, is the extent to which the show now devotes an increasing amount of space and time to explaining farming and food production to a population much farther removed from the process of getting food to their faces than any generation before.

This is an inevitable consequence of a world in which farming is on a much larger scale than ever before and the number of people directly involved in it much lower than before.

All of which means that whilst the Dorset County Show and others like it still provide an excellent place for farmers to talk to each other, it increasingly provides an even better place for the farming industry to talk to a public with an insatiable appetite for entertainment and hungry for information about their food.

Get that right and it’s easy to see this ancient tented tradition continuing for generations to come!

For details of this year’s show, click here!
For two days at the end of each summer, town meets country on the beautiful fringes of Dorchester, Dorset’s famous and historic County Town.
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