One of Bewdley’s oldest traditions is back this weekend. Bewdley Museum’s Cherry Fayre and 1940s Weekend returns to the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July, from 10am to 4pm, and it is free to come along.
Cherries and Bewdley go back a long way. North Worcestershire has been known for its cherries since at least the 1650s, and the small orchards of Rock, the Wyre Forest and the land around the town were part of a thriving trade, especially once the railway arrived in 1861. The fair itself is older still: a Bewdley fair was granted by King Edward IV in 1472, held on St Anne’s Day, and at some point it became a Cherry Fair, thought to be the only one of its kind left in the country. The local cherry trade faded in the 1960s, but Bewdley Civic Society and Bewdley Museum revived the fair in 2011 and run it together today to tell the story of the town’s orchards. That work carries on through the Cherry Rescue Project, which is using DNA fingerprinting to identify and save the old local varieties before they are lost.
This year’s weekend sits the cherries alongside the town’s 1940s past. You will find re-enactors from 20th Century Revisited and The Forever 40’s, classic 1940s and 1950s cars, the museum’s air raid shelter open to look round, and the education room laid out with wartime artefacts and volunteers on hand to talk through them. There are craft stalls, including the museum’s own Made in the Museum makers and a Bewdley Civic Society stall and raffle, market stalls and cherry pies, and a range of cherries and cherry trees to buy and take home.
There is live music both afternoons from 1.30pm to 3.30pm, with Kevin Mac on the Saturday and the Wyre Forest Big Band on the Sunday. The Garden Kitchen café serves from 10am to 4pm, with a cherry theme running through the day, from cherry matcha to a BBQ, beers, cider and cherry-themed cold drinks. Bring a picnic chair, find a spot in the gardens and make an afternoon of it.
Full details and times are on the Cherry Fayre and 1940s Weekend event page.
