RIDLEY'S FISH & GAME - What The Media Say

NEWCASTLE FAMERS' MARKET CELEBRATES IT'S FIRST DECADE

The Newcastle Farmers’ Market is about to hit double figures. On 1 September 2000, the first market took place in the Bigg Market. Ten years later, the market has moved up the hill to the Monument, but is still bringing the best of the country into the heart of the city.

The market was set up as an opportunity for local producers to sell directly to the public. Nine of the original producers continue to trade and will be taking part in the tenth birthday celebrations on Friday 3rd September 2010.

To mark this milestone the traders will be decorating their stalls, handing out samples and giving helpful tips and hints. There’ll be cooking demonstrations by Real Food Works using ingredients from the market to make easy, tasty meals. And Ridley’s Fish and Game, one of the producers fresh from their appearance on the Great British Menu, will be giving demonstrations on how to fillet various sorts of fish. Our new mayor will be there to officially open the celebrations by cutting the market’s birthday cake at 10am.

There will also be a number of competitions running throughout the day, one of which will be ‘guess who has traded at the market for 10 years?’ Don't miss David Ridley's Demonstrations on dressing local crabs and filleting sustainable local caught fish at the Market

Food Suppliers Go To London Market

From Hexham Courant>

TYNEDALE businesses have been championing what Northumberland has to offer during a visit to London’s oldest food market.

The owners of Ridley’s Fish and Game, of Acomb, and Coanwood chilli producer, Trees Can’t Dance, secured a pitch at Borough Market last month.

The market has a long and distinguished history dating back more than 250 years and is renowned for hosting quality producers from all over the country.

Carolyn Ridley, who owns and runs Ridley’s Fish and Game with husband David, said: “We’ve been down to the market a few times in the past and we jumped at the chance to be able to go again.

“It’s a wonderful place with some fantastic locally grown and sourced produce on offer, as well as a great place to let people know what we’re doing up here.” - February 2009.

Shop supplies posh restaurant with squirrel meat

From The Northern Echo

A VILLAGE shop is struggling to keep up with its customers demands - for grey squirrel meat.

Ridley's Fish and Game has sold 30 squirrels this week alone.

Owners David and Carolyn Ridley have adopted the slogan "eat a grey, save a red" and such as been the interest in the delicacy, they have been bowled over by the demand.

Now the shop is supplying Matfen Hall Hotel's restaurant, where confit of squirrel in a chestnut terrine has already proved a popular addition to the menu.

The shop - based in Corbridge, Northumberland - started stocking the meat in January and has regularly sold out since.

David, who also has a kitchen and game larder in Acomb, near Hexham, said: "There has been a considerable amount of interest.

"I think it's the initial novelty value and having something different to try which is making a lot of people go for the squirrel.

"At the moment, we are processing the squirrels as soon as they come in, but game would usually be hung for a while first.

"Squirrel doesn't need to be hung though - the meat has a wonderful flavour of its own. It is quite sweet and has the versatility of most game meats.

"It has gone down very well with our customers."

HWHL help Radio 2 presenters walk the Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail

From HADRIAN'S WALL COUNTRY Website>

Two of Britain's leading radio presenters completed the Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail in September, with help from HWHL.

BBC Radio 2's Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie also stopped off along the route to broadcast their 2009 British Press Guild Radio Programme of the Year show live from venues within Hadrian's Wall Country. The programme gave hours of positive coverage to Hadrian's Wall Country, with the presenters talking enthusiastically about their journey.

Along the way, HWHL had arranged for them to meet a number of people. Among those featured in the programmes were David McGlade, the Trail Manager for Hadrian's Wall Heritage Ltd, Lauren Harrison, Chairperson for the Hadrian's Wall Fairtrade Campaign, who talked about the campaign to gain Fairtrade status for Hadrian's Wall Country and David Ridley from Ridley's Fish and Game who greeted the two presenters near Housesteads Roman Fort with a basket of what Mark described as his 'great' pies.

The presenters and their production team also stayed in a range of accommodation along the Wall including Farlam Hall Hotel in Brampton, The Twice Brewed Inn near Bardon Mill, The George Hotel in Chollerford, Matfen Hall in Matfen and Keelman's Lodge in Newburn.

In the final programme, broadcast from Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths & Museum, the presenters thanked the staff at HWHL for helping the programme's production team to organise the journey. They also recorded a special podcast interview which is available on the HWHL website and Stuart has written a feature which will be published in the Mail on Sunday.

DAVID RIDLEY LEADS NATION’S FISHMONGERS (July 2008)

From Northumbria Larder>

It's low in fat, low in food kilometres and completely free range. In fact, some claim sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate.

The grey squirrel, American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand.

"We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go," said David Simpson, director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago.

At Ridley's Fish and Game shop in Corbridge, Northumberland, owner David Ridley says he has sold 1000 - at 3.50 ($8.89) a squirrel - since the beginning of the year. "I wasn't sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I've had days when I have managed to get 60 and they've all sold straight away."

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. "It's moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts," he said.

Both believe its new-found popularity is partly due to its green credentials. "People like the fact it is wild meat, low in fat and local - so no food miles," says Simpson. Ridley reckons patriotism also plays a part: "Eat a grey and save a red. That's the message."

The North - In God's Country

Travel writer Mark Porter journeys through the North of England, from the oyster beds of Holy Island to a cheese shop on the Welsh border. He finds its food reflects an increasingly diverse culture - one with which he has fallen in love.

I am standing at the ancient Roman border with Scotland, looking south from Hadrian's Wall across an undulating tract of Northumberland. To my left, the wall plummets down before rising steeply above Broomlee Lough, and to my right it beetles into the distance towards Lanercost Priory and the wooded, river-veined fastness of Cumbria.

Although Hadrian would not have agreed, this is God's country. Sparsely populated, wild and beautiful, it is the most northern outpost of the North of England, the last stop before Scotland. This borderland area became my home five years ago, and if I were to have my time again, I'd miss out the previous 15 in London and come straight here.

It is early morning and the winter sun is sneaking above the skyline of Newcastle, casting an orange glow across Corbridge and Hexham. I think back: this is the time of day I'd have been at Clapham South tube station, routinely watching several full Northern Line trains come and go, before squeezing into an unfeasible gap between total strangers.

Over coffee, we would swap nightmare stories about our journeys, then step aboard the hamster wheel for another eight hours, before enjoying the same stale hell all the way home. That same routine - for 15 years. London working life was rarely a picnic.

For many reasons, the North is now the place to be. Its great cities are undergoing a tangible renaissance. They are booming architecturally, culturally and commercially in a way we haven't seen since Victorian times. Leeds and Manchester are the two vibrant "capitals" of the southern region, having emerged from post-industrial doldrums as sparkling centres of consumerism.

Newcastle is without doubt the capital of the northern region. Thanks to some enlightened thinking at local government level, it is also home to the best public art in Britain. They put sculpture along the Tyne, created the impressive Baltic art gallery, erected the Angel of the North, invested in the Millennium Bridge and very nearly became Britain and Europe's Capital of Culture for 2008 (instead, that honour went to another citadel of the North, Liverpool).

The Baltic is a wonderful converted grain store on the south bank of the Tyne, and was wasted on Northerners, according to the outspoken art critic Brian Sewell. Never mind. No one up here took any notice. Who is Brian Sewell, anyway? Not very northern, that's what he is.

Plans for devolution in the North are now a dead duck following voters' overwhelming "No" to a regional assembly last November. This reflected not so much a lack of willingness to take the future into their own hands as a firm two fingers to the sop of a mere talking shop.

Newcastle is already the capital of the North, so why on earth should money be wasted on yet another useless tier of government at the behest of townies from a distant place called London?

I saunter back to the car park at Steel Rigg and thank my lucky stars I left the South when I did. This part of the world is fast becoming popular with people like me. More and more are choosing to leave London and work in far-flung Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. It's (maddening) people like me who have driven house prices up as we suddenly realise you don't have to be in London to have a life.

I drive down from Hadrian's Wall to the handsome nearby county town of Hexham, capital of Hexhamshire, just a few miles west of Newcastle. This is where Geordie money has moved and the prosperity here is tangible. Oysters in the window of a superb game and seafood shop in the High Street provide evidence of the changing times.

I am here to buy some game birds for the weekend. In the window are teal, widgeon, partridge, grouse and mallard. Not to mention monkfish, wild salmon and red gurnard which David Ridley, who runs Ridley's Fish & Game in Hexham and Corbridge, hand-selects from day boats. His game comes from local shoots and is prepared at the shop, all of which contributes to David's walloping 15-hour working day.

"There has definitely been a change in attitudes to food up here," says the former lorry driver and chef. "Of course, the area has become more affluent thanks to the increasing prosperity of the cities. People are moving out of them and back to the countryside and there is a growing market for more expensive lines."

At Hexham's suitably old-fashioned County Hotel I meet Dr Martin Farr, lecturer in political history at Newcastle University. He is from the South and I am from the Midlands, so between us we know exactly where the North starts: along an axis between Chester and Skegness, in Lincolnshire. Its northern boundary is the Scottish border, stretching from Carlisle in the west to the proud bastide of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

"Manchester views itself as comparable to London, and why shouldn't it? The BBC's move to decentralise shows that London is no longer seen as the hub of everything. There has been a metropolitanisation of the North and now there is very little difference between its towns and those in the South."

He goes further: "We are a consumer nation, a café-society studded with designer shops. The regeneration of the North has really been about aping the South, and you can see that written all over the centres of Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. Apart from football allegiances and local accents, we have seen the death of tribalism."

Writer and broadcaster Bea Campbell has her own ideas about what defines the North, and Northerners. She is a powerful voice for the region, and is the person they usually wheel out on Start the Week to intellectualise issues of the region, such as the damp squib of a devolution vote. Bea is a native of Carlisle and has a friendly, direct way with her, as well as a fine grasp of geopolitical dynamics.

"The thing about the North," she says, "is that it is not the South. It is defined by being removed from the centre of power. The South is where the classes in whom power resides have a peculiar alliance: the aristocracy and politicians.

"Up here we have discovered the pleasures of urban life after the scorched-earth policy of the 1980s when industry went to the wall. There is a commitment to conviviality and congregation in towns which have recently enjoyed a real renaissance. Arcades and theatres have been rebuilt and we have witnessed monumental regeneration, plus the invention of public art.

"These days you don't have to head for London, as I did back in the 1960s, if you want to get anywhere. We have friends in the North who would no sooner go to London than fly to the moon."

On that note, I head south down the A1, past the Angel of the North, Britain's most famous statue north of Nelson's Column, past Sunderland before turning off at Durham. Anyone looking across at the city will be struck by the majesty of the cathedral, perched there high above the looping blackness of the Wear.

Three centuries before that 1,000-year-old edifice was built, while grunting oafs infested the swamplands of the South-east during the Dark Ages, Northumberland was the cradle of Christianity and the centre of European intellectual enlightenment, a beacon of light in a bewildering murk. And where, for goodness' sake, did the Industrial Revolution take place, and where was the basis for Britain's great prosperity and Empire built? (Answer: in the North. In the Lancashire mills; the west-coast ports and the Hanseatic trading stations on the east coast; in the thundering industrial engine houses of Yorkshire; the Tyneside shipyards and the labyrinth of mines.)

My journey had begun on Holy Island, where St Cuthbert's epic voyage had finished. Unlike him, I was there for the Lindisfarne oysters, expertly shucked and served by David Foxton, chef-proprietor of the Crown & Anchor Inn, and renowned food critic. David is a Berwick man whose restaurant specialises in sourcing local produce and who now lives on the island. He declared the oysters among the best in the UK. "We're in God's country, so what do you expect? This is the land of saints and dinners."

He has a point. The North is justly proud of its food. Michelin-starred restaurants are taking over from the dying culture of the greasy spoon, and one thing Northerners do seem to vote for with one voice is good grub. Anyone looking at Rick Stein's Guide to the Food Heroes of Britain (BBC Publications; £12.99) will see that the density of small-scale producers who put the taste and quality of their food above profit is higher in much of the North than anywhere else in the UK.

One such food hero is farmer Steve Ramshaw. His company, Northumbrian Quality Meats, based at Monkridge Hill Farm near the village of Otterburn, rears organic rare-breeds, including heather- and clover-fed Black Faced lamb and mutton, hill-bred Aberdeen Angus and Gloucester Old Spot pork.

Why? There's a burgeoning market for such meaty exotica. "I used to work in the city, but I decided to return to my roots. There seems to be an increasing move back to the land," he says.

My journey south, beyond Durham, takes me past serried ranks of terraced housing, bewildering rows of Coronation Streets with belching chimneys. These days there are fewer cloth caps, and by and large the whippets are restricted to the Far North, but the clichéd image is still there, albeit dying consumptively in the backyards of Bishop Auckland and Crook. County Durham is not going to change that quickly, and a "critical mass" of black people has yet to arrive, though this is avowedly not the case down the road in the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Beyond the teeming metropolises there are still brass bands and rugby league, and the ancestral voices of Alan Sillitoe and John Braine still resonate. The tea rooms of Harrogate still echo to Alan Bennett. Sport is still very big.

Through County Durham and into Yorkshire's capital, Leeds, for a chat with John Chartres, a learned fellow from the city's famous university. "Historically, the North was pastureland while the South was ploughed. The North had oaten breads; the South, wheat. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, the North was industrialising while the South was doing the opposite," says the Professor of Social and Economic History.

"Then that great Victorian economy hit difficulties in the second quarter of the 20th century with the chemical, car and electrical industries moving south. Finally the mines went in the 1980s.

A shift in the balance of employment meant a rise of white-collar workers at the expense of the blue. The old self-confidence, embodied by the Northerners' self-perception, is fading and we are heading towards speaking estuarial English up here. Its spread is just like that of the West Midlands accent around the time of Chaucer, so it is nothing new."

My next port of call: Bradford, where the Asian presence makes for a memorable stop-off. It is here that rural Pakistanis arrived by the shipload during the 1950s, to provide cheap labour for the worsted industry. This is where some of the best curries in the world are to be had. I lunch and dine here, reflecting that the gently mocking scriptwriters of today, whose subject matter is the anglicised Asian culture, may well turn out to be the Bennetts and Sillitoes of tomorrow.

I eat gulab jaman before meandering into the Pennines for a pint and a bed. Here in the hills, the protagonists of American Werewolf in London were met with grim silence by the locals. I am met merely by a frothing pint of Taylor's and restrained curiosity, which I follow with a comfortable bed and a formidable, if cardio-vexing, breakfast. Thence through Lancashire into Cheshire, to stop at The Cheese Shop in Chester, which stocks 150 varieties of British cheese.

I stand here on the border with the South, thinking that this is the ideal place to bring the sort of Frenchman who says we Brits only produce two cheeses: Cheddar and Stilton. Cheshire is where, in the 16th century, some of Britain's earliest business culture emerged. Farmers with spare capital diversified, investing in new technology. One such business was dairy farming.

The spread of such trades (see all the Cheshire Cheese pubs in the South) began to stimulate the whole region economically and quickly transformed the port of Liverpool. It overtook Bristol and soon thrived on exporting goods around the world - not to mention local businessmen, who became successful frontiersmen across the Pond in the States.

From the curry houses of Bradford to the Chinese quarter of Manchester; from the swish restaurants of gentrified Geordieland to the cheese producers of Cheshire; from the greasy spoons of Sheffield to the duckling breeders of Goosnargh and the fishers of Whitby, the sheer scope and range of food and people in the North has never been greater.

If the secret of Rome's success was its ability to nurture, enhance and absorb every culture it encountered, then 21st-century northern England is a fitting testament to Hadrian and its erstwhile rulers.

Mark Porter writes guide books to walking and cycling routes in the North. For information on his new guide to Hadrian's Wall, log on to baytreepress.com.
From waitrose.com>

In Season

If you’re a fisherman and a forager, then this is the time of year for you, as Lisa Moore-Wilson explains.

EARLY summer is the time to eat delicious wild salmon and sea trout.

Their season is short but once tasted, the farmed versions pale into insignificance.

The North East has a long history of salmon fishing. And Tweed salmon is famous the world over. Hints of this heritage remain; carved salmon still peep out from village statues and Berwick still crowns its own Salmon Queen each year.

Today, a few crews fish the Tweed from their cobles but catching wild salmon is strictly regulated. “The season only lasts from June 16 to August 31, but if your fishmonger has some, it makes a lovely summer supper,” says Carolyn Ridley, pictured right, from Ridley’s Fish & Game.

Well known for their range of local produce, the Corbridge shop is a registered seller of salmon and sea trout guaranteeing full traceability and a reputable source.

Fans of wild salmon agree that it tastes nothing like farmed fish. One keen fisherman explained this to me in a slightly quirky analogy, perfect for current times.

A farmed salmon is like someone who sits on the sofa eating the same food day-after-day. In comparison, the wild version is the person who races about finding food when and where they can, becoming leaner and fitter in the process.

Certainly, wild salmon is darker with a meatier taste and closer texture than many supermarket fish. In fact, we have become so unaccustomed to the ‘real thing’ that some people can initially find the taste overpowering.

In this case sea trout might be a better option, suggests Carolyn. Although a river fish, sea trout are so named because they swim to the sea to fatten up before returning to spawn. With its delicate flavour and tender pink flesh, this is a treat in the short season it’s available.

As Carolyn enthuses: “Sea trout is a real pleasure and something you just don’t get every day, there is nothing like a beautiful silver fresh trout just landed.”

Both wild salmon and sea trout can be cooked like other fish; poached in wine, grilled in foil or gently fried in butter or oil.

Steve Oldale of Holy Island Mussels, a fan of sea trout, recommends the following tasty method.

Put the trout in a fish kettle, half cover with water and a bay leaf and a good pinch of salt. As soon as the water boils, turn the fish over. When it returns to the boil turn off the heat, leave for 20 minutes and then drain the water.

Meanwhile, mix the grated zest of a lime into some softened butter and when the fish is ready, peel off the skin and let this mixture melt over it.

There’s no doubt Mother Nature has one of the best pallets around; samphire is found on the same shoreline, in the same season.

This crunchy, salty vegetable tastes of the sea and goes perfectly with fish. Some fishmongers such as Ridley’s sell excellent quality samphire.

However, it’s often from France. To get your hands on a North Eastern version, the only way is to don your wellies and go foraging for your own. In this case, make sure you go armed with a copy of Richard Mabey’s Food for Free, first published in 1972 and still the wild food bible.

A lot of samphire grows in protected areas so make sure you are aware of any restrictions.

Samphire was known as Poor Man’s asparagus. So, if you can’t get hold of it, asparagus is also a great accompaniment to fish and is easily found in farm shops and delicatessens.

Our colder climate means this crop matures slowly developing a wonderful flavour as it grows. Both asparagus and samphire just need to be steamed and drizzled with butter to bring out their flavour.

If you make a tasty meal from these simple, seasonal ingredients your wellbeing will also benefit. Grilled or poached fish is low in calories and salmon is a good source of Omega 3.

Packed with Vitamin C, samphire aids digestion and is even touted as a natural treatment for obesity.

Going back to local, seasonal eating could well be a good defence against many of our modern woes.
From North East Exclusive >

GREEN FOODIES GOING NUTS ABOUT SQUIRRELS (May 2008)

From New Zealand Herald>

It's low in fat, low in food kilometres and completely free range. In fact, some claim sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate.

The grey squirrel, American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand.

"We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go," said David Simpson, director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago.

At Ridley's Fish and Game shop in Corbridge, Northumberland, owner David Ridley says he has sold 1000 - at 3.50 ($8.89) a squirrel - since the beginning of the year. "I wasn't sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I've had days when I have managed to get 60 and they've all sold straight away."

Simpson likens the taste to wild boar. Ridley thinks it is more a cross between duck and lamb. "It's moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts," he said.

Both believe its new-found popularity is partly due to its green credentials. "People like the fact it is wild meat, low in fat and local - so no food miles," says Simpson. Ridley reckons patriotism also plays a part: "Eat a grey and save a red. That's the message."

An Ethical Meal: Grey Squirrel (January 24th 2010)

From lifehunting.com >

Let us face it; it tastes sweet, like a cross between a duck and lamb. The squirrel meat is low in fat as well as low in food miles and most important, free range. In fact, many people affirm that the grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is just about as ethical as any other meat. Sales figures consolidate this statement as butchers affirm that they are selling squirrel meat like cup cakes.

The grey squirrel is the American cousin of Great Britain’s endangered red variety which are becoming more and more a rarity nowadays. Back to the grey squirrel, at Ridely’s Fish & Game, a shop located in Corbridge, Northumberland, the owner David Ridley recently stated that he sold 1,000 at £3. 50 a squirrel in just a few months. “I wasn’t sure at first, and wondered would people really eat it. Now I take every squirrel I can get my hands on. I’ve had days when I have managed to get 60 and they’ve all sold straight away. ” Regarding the taste of the meat, he said, “It’s moist and sweet because, basically, its diet has been berries and nuts”.

Many people believe that this increasing popularity is due to its green credentials. David Simpson, the director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall said that “people like the fact it is wild meat, low in fat and local – so no food miles” while Ridley was patriotic, saying that “Eat a grey and save a red. That’s the message”.

Jay Rayner who is The Observer’s restaurant critic affirmed that he never ate squirrel meat but if he would have it for dinner in the future, “it would have to be a big, fat country squirrel and not one of the mangy urban ones you see in cities”. “People may say they are buying it because it’s green and environmentally friendly, but really they’re doing it out of curiosity and because of the novelty value. If they can say, “Darling, tonight we’re having squirrel”, then that takes care of the first 30 minutes of any dinner party conversation.

I see it remaining a niche. There’s not much meat on a squirrel, so I’d be surprised if farming squirrel takes off anywhere some time soon. ” Kevin Viner who is the former chef-proprietor of Pennypots (the first Michelin-starred restaurant in Cornwall), now runs Viners bar and restaurant at Summercourt, said that eating squirrel meat will still remain a niche but the room to expand is available as Britain has a plentiful supply of meat with more than 5 million squirrels spread. Kevin stated, “A large squirrel would be enough for one-and-a-half people. The public really are being drawn to it. I think that it’s because it is being perceived as a healthy meat. Southern fried squirrel is good. And tandoori style works. It is especially tasty fricasséed with Cornish cream and walnuts.

But the one everyone seems to like is the Cornish squirrel pasty. ” The fact is that the squirrel meat is becoming more and more popular among households and you can see this from the numerous squirrel recipes available on the Internet. We do not know if it will remain a niche market or not, all we do know is that the meat is great and there are no potential risks as some people recently stated. We are not trying to convince anyone to eat or do not eat squirrel meat, this was just a brief presentation of the status of the grey squirrel meat.

COUNTRY LIFE HAILS HEXHAM AS ENGLAND'S FAVOURITE MARKET TOWN

Country Life, the iconic weekly magazine that celebrates the very best of Britain, has named Hexham in Northumberland as England's Favourite Market Town.

In association with Strutt & Parker, Country Life scoured the length and breadth of England looking for the ideal market town – one whose particular mix of charm, accessibility, community and spirit sets it apart from its peers.

Hexham finished top of a short-list of five regional winners, originally nominated by Country Life readers and then judged by an esteemed panel – namely Noel Edmonds, Penelope Keith, Ben Fogle, the Rt Hon John Gummer MP and the former Archbishop of York, Lord Hope.

Clive Aslet, editor of Country Life, says: “Market towns provide an ideal recipe for modern living. Hexham achieves what to many people will seem perfection. It is the right size, clusters around a majestic work of architecture (the abbey), boasts a race course and lies next to Hadrian's Wall. Above all, it is a place that its inhabitants clearly love. You only have to look at the beautifully tended gardens, spirit-lifting floral displays and carefully designed shop fronts (including the one fronting the local MP's office) to see that.”

James Laing, Partner of Strutt & Parker, adds: “At the judging what became very clear is that the winning town would be the one with the most traditional values and would be the one least affected by modern development. Hexham is therefore a very worthy winner: an idyllic and unspoilt town with a market place and a thriving rural community where traditional values are understood and preserved. It was a very close run contest with Framlingham in Suffolk coming a strong second. Whilst it could be argued that all the finalists deserved to win, our congratulations go to Hexham.”

Lord Hope, former Archbishop of York and the judge who championed Hexham, comments: “There is a definite sense here of a town with a pride and a purpose. Also a town that is friendly and welcoming, a place where people matter and visitors are made to feel at home, a place which has a real sense of the past coupled with a realism about the present and an excitement for the future.”

Ridley's Fish & Game are at Hexham Market every Tuesday and Saturday.
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