Grow Make Bake
Westcott's Summer and Autumn Shows
Bring what you’ve grown, what you’ve made and what you’ve baked. Everyone’s welcome, and it costs nothing to enter.
What is Grow Make Bake?
Westcott has been holding “flower shows” since 1857, but that name only ever told half the story. Yes, there are still roses, sweet peas and dahlias on the show bench today. But there are also classes for vegetables and fruit, jams and scones, cakes and loaves, photography, embroidery and crafts, and a whole section for children.
- Grow: roses, sweet peas, fruit and vegetables in summer; dahlias, chrysanthemums and the harvest in autumn.
- Make: floral arrangements, crafts and photography.
- Bake: cakes, scones, jams, chutneys and other home produce.
You don’t need a garden, an allotment or years of experience. If you can bake a batch of scones or take a decent photograph, there’s a class for you.
Not as new as it sounds
Westcott held its first show on Saturday 3 October 1857, in the village school room. It was run by the newly formed Westcott Floral and Horticultural Society, “for the encouragement of cottage gardening”. Alongside the vegetables there were classes for nosegays, window plants and wild flowers, and a hive of honey won 5s in 1859. Some prizes weren’t money at all: a wheelbarrow, a steel digging fork from the secretary, Charles March, and once a Bible for the best potatoes. That society faded after 1862.
When the village revived the idea in 1901, with a show in the grounds of Bury Hill, it soon went further. Within four years it had a cookery section. In 1905 Miss Drew of the Rookery suggested a class for “the best workman’s dinner”, and Mrs Rate of Milton Court put up the prizes. It was won by Mrs A. Rose, who had spent two years in the cookery class at the village Continuation School. The same year, 13-year-old Winnie Wakefield won a special prize for her home-made loaf.
By 1907 the show’s “industrial section” had more than 80 entries, from loaves, fruit tarts, roly-poly and jam to darning and children’s washing frocks. The star was Mrs Duddridge, who was placed in six cookery classes that year and tied for first prize in the cake class with Edith Wakefield. By 1910 there were classes for needlework, knitting and dolls, and fretwork and woodwork for the boys. The 1913 advertisement promised “Flowers, Fruit, Vegetables, Cookery, Fretwork, and Baby Show.” (We’ve quietly dropped the baby show…)
170 years of tradition
So Grow Make Bake isn’t a new idea. It’s the oldest idea in Westcott’s show calendar, with a new name on the front. In 2027 it will be 170 years since that first show in the school room. The shows have lapsed twice, after 1862 and again with the First World War, and twice the village has brought them back. The Gardeners’ Club has run them since the 1950s. Read the full story.
The Summer Show
Saturday 3 July 2027, Westcott Village Hall. The big one. Roses and sweet peas, the first of the vegetables and soft fruit, flower arranging, crafts, home baking and the children’s classes, with the club’s oldest trophies up for grabs.
The Autumn Show
Saturday 11 September 2027, Westcott Village Hall. Westcott’s original dahlia show in all but name. The village held a Dahlia Show of its own from about 1901, and in 1907, its seventh year, it was held in Brooklands Meadow. Today the autumn show is the place for dahlias, chrysanthemums and the best of the harvest, alongside plenty of making and baking.
Entering a show
Anyone can enter our shows. You don’t have to be a member, though you’ll need to have been one for three months to take home a cup (other than the novice cup).
It’s free. There’s no charge to exhibit. Visitors pay 50p, and under-16s get in free.
Schedules (available in early 2027) will list every class, from a bunch of radishes to a specific cake recipe.
Hand in your form by 1pm on the Thursday before the show, in the box at Nisalocal, Guildford Road or enter online.
Just bring your entries on the morning of the show, between 8.30 and 11am.
Doors open to visitors at 2.30pm, and the prize-giving and raffle are at 4pm.
First time? Try the novice classes, and you could win the Jill Flower Novice Cup. Children aged 9 and under have their own classes and can enter everything else too if they wish.
A few fair-play rules
Anything in the Grow classes must be grown by you. Anything in the Make classes must be your own work, made in the last 12 months. And the judges’ decision is final, as it has been since 1901.
