Lanark Smallholder and Grower Festival 2014 Slideshow

A bustling trade and craft hall, top livestock, stunning crafts and a packed educational programme added up to a great day for Scottish smallholders.

Rosemary Champion, festival founder, said: “We’re delighted with the 2014 festival and our thanks go to exhibitors, judges and visitors and our brilliant team of volunteers, without whom the event just wouldn’t happen.”

The organisers have already announced that the 2015 festival, aimed at people interested in a sustainable way of life, will be staged once again in Lanark on Saturday, September 26.

Livestock classes this year were well supported, particularly by those with rare and traditional breeds, although the sheep champion was a Suffolk ewe.

For the first time, the festival’s goat show had a full milking competition and the pig show also saw a record level of entries. Poultry and waterfowl classes saw a great turnout, with a Cayuga Duck crowned champion.

It also hosted the first Rare Breeds Survival Trust Scottish National Championships with goats, pigs and sheep.

Peter Titley, immediate past President of RBS, judged the finals and presented the RBST Caledonian Quaich, won by the senior Saddleback boar, and the Parkhill Cup for a Castlemilk Moorit sheep in the Youngstock competition.

A full programme of seminars and demonstrations supported the event’s aim to “inform and inspire”. There were speakers on a wide range of subjects with The Woodland Trust offering a Forester’s Question Time, as well as talks on small-scale cattle keeping and poultry and geese.

In addition, there were demonstrations of spinning, basket making, goat milking, cattle foot trimming and butchery skills.

If you missed it this year, make sure it is in your diary for 2015!

Freelance photographer James Clare was on hand to capture all the action for the Gazette and his pictures, featured in our slideshow created by editor Julie Currie, are available to purchase in the Buy It Now section of this website.