Kentish food and drink – and more – on offer at Cliftonville Farmers Market

Cliftonville Farmers Market Photo John Horton

Cliftonville Farmers Market is back tomorrow (July 25) with its latest offerings of local food and goods.

The event, run by Cliftonville Residents Association, takes place on the Oval Lawns, Eastern Esplanade, from 10am to 1p.m.

The market will celebrate its 20th anniversary in September and has won nine prestigious awards along the way.

Organiser June Chadband said: “It has a lovely group of stallholders who do their bit for the market. One of the stallholders manages our twitter account, another our facebook and instagram and another our admin.

“We also have the six men who prepare the site for the stallholders each month, erecting the gazebos, tables and crowd barriers/cones and staying to marshal the market with the manager and adhering to all Government guidelines over the last year. They are all unpaid CRA volunteers.”

This month, stallholders will be selling seasonal veg, Kentish cheeses, preserves, chutneys, olives, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, vinegars, sausages, wild game, meat, cider, plants, doggy treats, vegan cakes, Turkish/Greek savouries & pastries, fresh plaice, cod, skate wings, tiger prawns, seasonal soft fruits, fruit crumbles, jams, juices, vegan food, Russian cakes, Russian dishes, New York Style cookies, iced biscuits, shortbread, cupcakes, Kentish grown saffron, sourdough bread, Italian savouries & doughnuts, eco friendly goods, fermented foods, coffee beans, eggs, duck eggs and more.

June said: “We have a new stallholder joining us this month selling fresh flowers and herbs, veg and flower seedlings. Shoppers will be able to buy hot dogs from St. Peters Sausage Company and excellent coffee and teas from Emma at Real Deal Roasters, as well as buying her coffee beans.

“Until recently, Thanet council were our landlords. We now have new landlords and as they are, like us, a community group, we hope that we can come to some mutually agreeable arrangement for Cliftonville Farmers Market, to remain on what has been its home for the last 20 years.”

The Oval Bandstand and Lawns in Cliftonville officially entered community ownership this month when the freehold was transferred from Thanet council to GRASS Cliftonville CIC.

5 Comments

  1. Oh dear, another ‘cock up’ by TDC who obviously gave no thought to the group who had been running the event for nearly 20 years and were in effect
    ‘sitting tenants’ I do hope it can be resolved as it is an excellent market.
    I feel very sorry for the way the CRA have been treated. It is so typical of this council.

  2. It’s a rubbish market not for us the real poor people that live here in cliftonville everything too too expensive much cheaper on Northdown road in international store better quality I went this market and the food terrible very poor and gredy

    • I am so sorry that you think it is a rubbish market. The over 900 people who came through the market this morning probably don’t all agree with you, as they shop at the market on a regular basis. Thank you for giving the market a go and do enjoy your shopping on the Northdown Road. I am sure they are glad of your patronage.

  3. I’ve been down there the last two times and I can confirm it is overpriced, though not so for the self satisfied wine swilling tractor owners of Broadstairs.

    I don’t doubt that it is positive civic initiative to embrace local (and independently) produced foodstuffs but the range simply isn’t big enough to make anything but a proximity visit worthwhile.

    Meanwhile, I remain ambivalent to small farmers’ markets.

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