Lambeth Country Show 2017: Everything you need to know

Back for its 43rd year, the hugely popular show returns to Brockwell Park this weekend
Big draw: the Lambeth Country Show draws an audience of around 170,000

A mainstay of London summers for the best part of 45 years, the Lambeth Country Show returns to Brockwell Park this weekend on Saturday July 15 and Sunday July 16.

As ever, the free festival will be its own curious blend of quirky entertainment, arts and theatre, local talent and, er, vegetables.

Despite its perceived tweeness, the show is actually one of the largest and most popular festivals in the UK. Last year it drew nearly 170,000 attendees; by comparison, typically 135,000 festival goers make it to Glastonbury. In fact, the surprising popularity of the Country Show even threatened once the political career of former shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, after he misguidedly attempted to cancel it.

Running each day from midday until 8pm, this year’s festival will have no shortage of surprises. This year's highlights include an athletic zone, live birds of prey displays, a chocolate museum and even jousting. Yes; mediaeval sport jousting is set to entertain almost 200,000 spectators on a balmy – it's set to be around 22 celsius – south London weekend.

As ever, the vegetable carving competition, long a mainstay of the show, is not to be missed. The extraordinary display sees locals submit garden-friendly works of art, all built out of real vegetables. Among last year's puntastic submissions were Donald Trump styled as Titus Andronicus, the Labour leader restyled as Jeremy Corbean and the Corbeanistas, House of Chard “Et tu, Beetrute?” and Nigel Cab-Bage and his Euro-pea-an pension pot.

In addition to the quirkier traditions, there'll also be live music courtesy of the Oxjam music festival and live theatre from the Old Vic. Elsewhere will be a flower show from the RHS on tour, a performance from Brixton Dance School, an African drumming workshop, Reggae Aerobics and a mini farm courtesy of Vauxhall City Farm, as well as two other sheep displays.

Nearby parking is limited. The nearest tube station is Brixton, around 20 minuteswalk from Brockwell Park, while Herne Hill and Tulse Hill are the two closet mainline stations to the festival. The 2, 3, 37, 68, 196, 322, 432, 468, 690 bus lines all service the area, while there are four locations to lock bikes for avid cyclists.

For more information, visit lambethcountryshow.co.uk

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in