"When is Cottesbrooke Plantfinders Fair coming back?" people often wail. At least around here they do, where we in the East Midlands became used to hosting this very chic event. It was talked about in certain circles with as much anticipation as the Chelsea Flower Show and it was all ours.
Well it ain't coming back. But it's been resurrected as two new shows. One is the self-explanatory
Borde Hill Plantfinders' Fair in July, in Sussex. The other is now, this week, in the village of Hampstead. It has been set up by the people who made Cottesbrooke so special (Cottesbrooke memories can be found
here) and this time you don't have to drive up the M1. You just take the Northern Line or overground train to NW3 and
GROW London is there, on the Lower Fairgound Site on East Heath Road, in the tent left behind by the Affordable Art Fair.
Part of the reason that people loved Cottesbrooke was that it was an edited selection of goods. It was also in a ravishing setting and you could wander around the gardens, listen to speakers who were always amusing and you could buy things. No jostling around show gardens; no anxiety about being assaulted by tat. There is NO TAT.
I'd like to think of myself as Kay Thompson in all of this, the singing editor of Quality Magazine in Funny Face. But we're not talking about pink this time. Remember: "Think black, think black
for the long, long road ahead." See the GROW London programme for details.
