Fell Gather - Public Events

Fell Gather 2011

Fell Gather is organised by members of the Cumbria Farmer Network and held at Mitchell’s Lakeland Livestock Centre in Cockermouth. It aims to explain and show the connections from field to plate and celebrate all aspects of Lakeland food and farming. This is the third year of this event.

The event gives people the opportunity to talk to farmers and food suppliers to learn where food comes from and shows people how they can source almost anything locally.

This year’s Fell Gather event held on Saturday 11 June 2011 celebrated the best of Cumbrian food and farming with local celebrities and a host of activities, presentations and demonstrations for all the family.

“We had more visitors than ever,” said organiser, Roy Jenkinson, “about 20% up on last year’s event and with lots more children and families, which is really encouraging.”

Margaret Harper from The Farmer Network agrees: “We also had lots of positive feedback with people staying longer and really enjoying the talks and demonstrations. There was a real buzz around the event with lots to see and do and plenty to taste and buy and our visitors seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.”

Some of the biggest queues were for opportunities to connect with local livestock, a clear favourite with the many younger visitors. here were ferret walks, life sized model cows for milking, hatching chicks to watch and, one of the big attractions for this year, Rosie, the Beltex lamb who was the first lamb born on the BBC’s Lambing Live programmes.

Other highlights of the day included presentations by Alison O’Neill, the Barefoot Shepherdess from the Howgill fells, the butchery demonstration by David Morland of Westmorland Limited and cookery ideas and inspirations from Annette Gibbons OBE and Kate Hood of Chocolate Tiers. The connections back to farming were reinforced by local farmers, Will Rawling and John Bowe, in a series of presentations throughout the day.

A Fell Gather Inn and Fell Gather Brew had been created by Jennings especially for the day and Gaynor Green, General Manager at Jennings Brewery, main sponsors of Fell Gather, said: “The connections of our beer and brewing processes to local produce seemed to capture interest too. Fell Gather is an ideal opportunity for us to support a major local event and we hope that visitors enjoyed finding out about aspects of country life throughout the show.” 

If you are interested in having a stall at Fell Gather please contact Head Office, Email info@thefarmernetwork.co.uk or Tel. 01768 868615. 

Milking an artifical cow.

The Marston family featured on Lambing Live 2011.

Westmorland Services head butcher David Morland's butchery demonstration. 

Annette Gibbons, O.B.E. cookery demonstration.

All Saints School, Cockermouth recycle display.