Expect giant leeks and beautiful blooms at the North East Horticultural Society and Beamish Museum Annual Show, Saturday, 7th and Sunday, 8th September 2024.
We have teamed up with the North East Horticultural Society for this annual event, which will see fierce, friendly competition at the museum as a vast array of vegetables, flowers and crafts are put forward to be judged.
Avid gardeners will find plenty of categories arranged by the North East Horticultural Society to enter, while the museum’s visitors, staff and volunteers can also compete for certificates and rosettes with their amazing home-grown and homemade entries in The Beamish Challenge.
Rebecca Walker, Events Assistant at Beamish Museum, said: “If you grow brilliant beetroots, perfect pea pods or amazing apples, we encourage you to enter The Beamish Challenge, even if your vegetables aren’t perfect, you can enter the misshapen vegetable category!
“If flowers are more your thing, why not enter a mixed arrangement? There are also a whole host of craft categories including a knitted or crocheted toy, tapestry or cross stitch and peg dolls – we’re especially looking forward to seeing the photo entries for Beamish through the seasons!”
A highlight of the two-day show is the Grand Auction of the entries at 3.30pm on Sunday, 8th September (excluding craft items which can be returned to the owner).
Alongside The Beamish Challenge, members of the North East Horticultural Society will hold their own annual extravaganza of allotment-grown leeks, flowers and vegetables. Enormous leeks vie for the prestigious title of heaviest leek, and a wonderful array of vegetables and flowers will be judged and on view throughout the weekend.
Shows like the North East Horticultural Society and Beamish Museum Annual Show have their roots in the region’s mining culture, with nearly all pitmen being remarkable gardeners. After a hard day spent underground, gardens and allotments offered miners a chance to spend time in the fresh air.
Gardens were also an important source of cheap, homegrown vegetables such as leeks, cabbages, carrots and potatoes.
The North East Horticultural Society and Beamish Museum Annual Show is based upon the popular leek shows of the 1900s.
As well as providing the perfect opportunity to show off a person’s vegetable-growing skills, these shows offered thousands of pounds in prize money. Competition could be extremely fierce, with newspapers from the 1900s reporting leek slashers and gardeners sleeping in their gardens to guard their prized vegetables.
Daytime events are included in admission to the museum and visitors can use their Beamish Unlimited Pass or Friends of Beamish membership to enjoy all daytime events including the North East Horticultural Society and Beamish Museum Annual Show, pay once and visit free for twelve months.