Althorp’s new food festival showcases best county has to offer

The first Althorp Food Festival runs from Friday September 25 and Saturday September 26 takes place at Althorp House. The event is designed to celebrate quality producers and suppliers in the Northamptonshire area, Althorp’s inaugural Food Festival will be taking place in the Grade I listed Stables Courtyard, Spencer Exhibition Rooms and marquees.

Showcasing Northamptonshire’s finest food and drink, the event will welcome over 30 local producers, as well as suppliers of fine foods, organic produce and the best home and kitchen goods.

Activities and entertainment will be taking place to suit all age ranges, to include sessions from celebrity chefs, cookery demonstrations, live music and an array of interactive children’s entertainment. No further details on which chefs have been revealed.

The House and Grounds will also be open to visit.

The Festival begins at 11am on Friday morning with a talks and cookery demonstrations from 11.30am until 5pm.

There are at least four talks and four cookery demonstrations taking place each day within the Stables and on the magnificent portico, overlooking the Deer Park.

A spokesman for the event organisers said: “Enjoy a wonderful day at the Althorp Food Festival, celebrating the county’s best local food and drink in the setting of one of England’s most beautiful, private, stately homes.”

There are hopes that the food festival will be as successful as the stately home’s literary festival which has been running for the past 12 years.

Althorp House was built in 1508, by the Spencers, for the Spencers, and that is how it has remained for over 500 years.

It is set in the tranquillity of its walled 550- acre parkland – which is part of the wider 13,000-acre estate – in the heart of beautiful, unspoilt, Northamptonshire countryside.

The Stables are ultimately Italian in inspiration, although their deep Tuscan porticos borrow directly from Inigo Jones’s St Paul’s Covent Garden.

Until the start of the 20th century, the Stables were home to 100 horses and 40 grooms.

Tickets are £7 for adults, with children aged 15 and under admitted for free.

Tickets can be purchased online by visiting www.spencerofalthorp.com or upon arrival at the public entrance gates on both days.