Shropshire Star

Festival trail to spice up Market Drayton

Market Drayton's Ginger & Spice Festival will include the return of the spice trail and prize draw.

Published

The spice trail, sponsored for the second year by the Leek United Building Society, is one of the festival's fringe events and will take place on Friday, September 27 and Saturday, September 28, between 10am and 5pm.

Festival-goers can join for free and follow the trail around town, exploring Market Drayton's rich foodie history.

The trail will include food and drink facts as well as historical information about the town. There will also be opportunities for sampling and tasting in the shops, cafes and pubs that are taking part.

It will be guided by a leaflet featuring Humphrey the camel, the Leek United mascot, including clues for families to follow.

At each participating premises or trail stop, children can collect the names of gingerbread characters they meet along the way, and adults must answer a heritage question to qualify for the free prize draw.

The prize for the children's draw is a Leek United piggy bank filled with 30 £1 coins. Adults can instead win a hamper of goodies collected from Leek United and the festival's Spice Exchange Street Market stallholders.

Culinary heritage

Leek United chief executive Andrew Healy said: “We’re delighted to once again be a main sponsor of Market Drayton's Ginger & Spice Festival, and we hope that visitors will enjoy exploring the town on the Leek United heritage spice trail.

“It’s entirely fitting that our own mascot Humphrey is the ‘tour guide’ for the trail, since camels played such a big part in helping to transport spices on the ancient overland trading routes.

“But more than that, the festival is a wonderful way of giving people a real taste of everything good that the Market Drayton is famous for, and we’re simply happy to be a part of that."

Festival director Julia Roberts said: "The festival aims to reconnect the local community to their culinary heritage via a series of exciting and novel activities over four days. The Leek United heritage spice trail forms an essential part in this sharing of heritage and without their support it would be a lot harder to achieve.

"We really are delighted to be partnering again and very much hope that we can continue to grow the trail participation together.’’