Shaftesbury Food Festival

Tradition Lives On in Shaftesbury 💛

The Shaftesbury Food Festival is always one of our favourite annual events and something we highly recommend guests experience if they’re staying with us in May. Best of all, it’s only a 10-minute drive from The Old Forge.

This year’s festival on the 3rd of May was full of atmosphere, local food and wonderful traditions that make Shaftesbury such a special town.

One of the highlights has to be the famous Gold Hill cheese race. There’s something brilliantly bonkers and wonderfully British about carrying wheels of cheese up one of England’s steepest cobbled streets while crowds cheer from the sidelines. Tradition at its finest.

We also loved watching Steps in Time perform their traditional country dancing through the town, keeping old customs alive for a new generation to enjoy. And perhaps our proudest moment of all was seeing Iris taking part in the maypole dancing 🌸

The loveliest part for us is how these traditions are passed down through families. We danced as sisters when we were young, and now Iris and her cousins dance too, wearing her Auntie Lottie’s dress from years before. Watching those memories continue through another generation felt incredibly special.

The celebrations end with a beautiful parade through the town, following in the footsteps of generations before us and giving thanks for the gift of water and the history that shaped Shaftesbury into the town it is today.

We feel very lucky to call this little corner of Dorset home. There is so much history here, but also so much heart. Events like the Shaftesbury Food Festival remind us how important community, tradition and simple togetherness really are.

We already can’t wait for next year 💛