Mike Johnson with Chris Fairs of Bulmers and Carol Bramley manning the Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Co stand

As well as the wide range of ciders and perrys produced at Broome Farm to try there were several other Herefordshire cider makers together with representatives from Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Wales all available to talk about their products.  Well done to anyone who was able to sample them all!
 During the afternoon there was a demonstration of how cider is made – how the apples are milled, the pulp then layered in hessian cloths to form a ‘cheese’ and the pressing and collection of the extracted juice.

Throughout the day music was provided by local musicians including two lovely young ladies from Hereford known as Milkteeth, Happy Valley and an excellent blues session from Callum and Toby.

 In the early evening sunshine everyone was also able to enjoy some traditional morris dancing courtesy of the Foxwhelp Morris team.

Fund raising has been ongoing at Broome Farm throughout this year in aid of ‘Send a Cow’, a charity which aims to provide livestock and fruit trees to some of Africa’s poorest families.  As a result during the afternoon Mike Johnson presented a cheque for £2000 to Mr Geoff Price representing ‘Send a Cow’ to enable a whole farmyard to be sent to an African village.  Many thanks to everyone whose hard work made this possible.  Further information on the work of the charity is available from the farm or www.sendacow.org.uk.

The Festival concluded with an excellent couple of hours from The Poachers folk group who had everyone joining in with many well known songs and traditional barn dances.