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Watercress festival









 
National Watercress Week 2008 started in style on Sunday 11 May with the 5th annual Watercress Festival, held in the beautiful Georgian town of Alresford, Hampshire.

Antony Worrall Thompson arrives at the 5th annual watercress festival in Alresford, HampshireThe town pulled out all the stops making it a day to remember with over 10,000 visitors filling the streets to mark the bi-centenary of the British watercress industry and the official start of the season.

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson carried out free cookery demonstrations in Broad Street and signed copies of the new anniversary watercress recipe book. Hampshire Fare organised a fabulous food market of local producers, many of whom competed in The Watercress Food Awards with new and innovative products.

There was something for everyone, with performances from the BasinClog Morris Men, Juggling Jake, Hook Eagle Morris Men, local funk-fuelled Celtic-jazz fusion band ASH, face painting, climbing walls and a dance by the Sun Hill Infants school.

Andy Hemsle,winner of the first ever world watercress eating chamionship at the 2008 watercress festival in AlresfordAs the temperature topped 80 degrees, Andy Hemsley from Alresford, Hampshire, proved he could handle the heat, in more ways than one, when he claimed the title to win the first ever World Watercress Eating Championship. Pitting himself against the peppery super-food, Andy stormed ahead of 20 other contestants, to eat an incredible 6 bags of watercress (510g), in just 2 minutes.

Alresford is the UK’s “capital” of watercress farming with over 70 acres of land devoted to watercress. Grown in mineral rich spring water, drawn from deep under the chalk downs of Hampshire, watercress is one of our natural super-foods, gram for gram containing more iron than spinach, more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk and more folate than bananas. Visitors to the festival were able to find out more on free watercress farm tours guided by local farmers. Free tours were also operating on the Watercress Line heritage railway, which acquired its name because of the vast quantities of watercress it used to transport up to Covent Garden Market. To find out more about watercress’s fantastic culinary heritage visit our historical facts page