Members of the Walford community recently hosted a flower festival inside their village Church, over three days.

Flower arrangements, each depicting a different biblical parable were set up all around the St Michael and All Angels’ Church, creating a beautiful fragrant scene inside the newly refurbished building.

Gay Chinn, one of the organisers told the Ross Gazette that the flower festival is the first that the village has held for many years. She said that a flower festival on a much smaller scale was held as a part of a village fete, approximately 30 years ago, but this is the first large flower festival that has been given its own occasion.

While many local groups and individuals arranged displays for the flower festival, the event was spearheaded by a core committee, consisting of Karen Chinn, Heidi England, Sanna Drummond, Gay Chinn, Susan Mathew, Nicky Smith and Karen Fowler.

Karen Chinn told the Ross Gazette that the core committee had the job of trying to coerce a lot of people into helping with the flower festival, and they received a great deal of generous sponsorship from many local businesses.

She added that many people engaged with the flower festival from within the community.

Those who arranged the flower displays were: Susan Mathew, children from Walford Pre-school, Cheryl Redding, Tonia Freyer, Heidi England, the Walford Church Flower Arrangers, Jennifer Hazell, Heather Faux, the Paddle and Praise group, Sanna Drummond, Julia Wilde and Jenny Bowen, Gay Chinn, the Ross-on-Wye Girl Guides, Margaret Leach and Pauline Curtis, Jean Reeves, Tina Raddenbury, Fredda Davies and Erika White.

The children of Walford Pre-school were very excited to be included in the flower festival. For their arrangement, they made sheep and decorated the farm to depict the parable of the ‘Lost Sheep’.

The Spring Flower Festival was arranged to raise funds for maintaining the Church. It opened on Friday, May 20th, and from 7pm until 10pm, canapés and Castle Brook Cuveé, a local bubbly, was served. On Saturday, May 21st and Sunday May 22nd, the Church was open between 10am and 4pm, and tea, coffee and cakes were available.