Sunday saw the first of the new Wivey Town Markets, inspired in part by the successful 10 Parishes Festival Street Markets held in September. If things go to plan, this should give Wivey a quarterly market throughout the year. Whilst I have some connection to the Festival Markets, I don’t with these Town Markets.
We decided to walk down from Whitefield, but looped out via Oakhampton Quarry, Ford and Castle Hill. We are trying to get lots of walking in, as we intend to walk the complete Wivey Way next Sunday. About 23 miles I think, and we are expecting it to take about 10-12 hours depending on stoppages. Parts of yesterday’s route were on the Wivey Way, and we covered about 6 miles by the time we got back home.
The picture shows the eastern approach to Wivey along the Way above Manor Garage.
The weather wasn’t great, quite blustery with occasional light rain, but not unpleasant. Certainly not the best weather for a street market, but there were people out for it and they seemed to be enjoying it. We hung around for about an hour chatting with people around lunch time. Unfortunately none of the food on off took our fancy. Too many people selling burgers and sausages in a bun. There was a stall selling gluten free cakes which makes a nice change (as I need to avoid wheat), but after trying a taster I decided they weren’t very special. Interesting that practically none of the normal street fair traders were in attendance.
I certainly welcome the idea of a quarterly market in Wivey, but bias aside, the Festival Market is hard to match in terms of variety and quality. I’m sure in time, if the organisers put in the effort, they’ll have something very worthwhile.
