Steep Flower Show 2025

The end of the summer in Steep is marked by the village flower show – now over one hundred years old and still a popular community event. This year, not even a burst water main could dampen the mood. Thanks to Bedales’ water tank, the show could go on!

We had more entrants than ever this year and were delighted that so many entered multiple classes – that’s the way to win! The diversity of entries in all the classes was outstanding and we are proud that we have so many elements in our show: traditional fruit and vegetable classes alongside bakery, crafts, poetry, photography and children’s classes. It was especially wonderful to see how many children entered, perhaps due to Ellie Thackrey’s innovative separate children’s schedule that was distributed to local schools. We’re hoping to build on this next year and welcome even more younger entrants.

The guest of honour was Katy Watson, who is a garden designer, gardening mentor, writer, and the new country garden expert on Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Club, season 2, 2025. Her gardening blog can be found on katyinthegarden.com, and she is also on instagram. She lives locally and was bowled over by the show. She gave a touching and heartfelt speech, awarding the ‘Best in Show’ prize to a garden in a seed-tray which clearly benefitted from its young gardener’s green fingers.

We put on the flower show primarily as a community event for the village but, due to the generosity of those who donate their time, cakes and willingness to wash up, we usually make enough money to give some to local good causes. For example, we gave Steep School a chicken run a couple of years ago and this year helped them to refurbish the garden there. We’ve given money for plants at the Steep war memorial garden and have helped the Adhurst allotments in Sheet with buying equipment after a break-in. If you know of a local club, society or group that would benefit from some of the money we raise, we would be delighted to hear about it.

You can help bring the spring plant sale and the show to the village next year by volunteering. We always need help, whether just a couple of hours or in bigger roles on the committee, so please let us know through our email: steepflowershow@gmail.com or you can get in touch with someone on the committee in person. (Lucy McIlwraith, Maike Heining, David Anson, Ailsa McNaughton, Steve Amos, Andrew Plaistow, Matt Meyer, Mike Robinson and Ellie Thackrey) Thank you to everyone who helped in the show this year – it was brilliant! Next year we’d love to run more outside games if we have enough volunteers and if anyone fancies taking on the bottle stall and raffle, you could bring them back to the show and make a lot of people very happy!

Well done to everyone who competed in this year’s show – you are all winners and we loved seeing what you had grown and made. Start planning for next year and look out for our competition schedule which will be out in the early spring, printed in the centre pages of this newsletter.

Lucy McIlwraith & Maike Heining

Orange and Almond Cake Recipe

Lots of you asked for the recipe for the orange and almond cake, which also happens to be dairy- and gluten-free

• 2 oranges
• 225 caster sugar
• 1 tbsp honey
• 6 eggs, separated
• 300g ground almonds

For the syrup and topping: 4 more oranges

• 2 lemons
• 6 cardamon pods
• Star anise
• 3 tbsp sugar
• Flaked almonds

1: Boil 2 oranges for an hour to an hour and a half in a pan of water. Grease and line a 23cm / 9in cake tin.

2: Heat the oven to 170C. Drain, then pulp the oranges with a stick blender.

3: Mix together the egg yolks, sugar and honey. Fold in the ground almonds and orange pulp.

4: Whisk the egg white and fold them into the mixture. Pour into the cake tin and bake for an hour.

5: While the cake is baking, make the syrup: peel the upper layer of the oranges, remove any pith and chop them into fine strips. Boil them in water for a few minutes until softened. Put them on a cooling rack to dry out and sprinkle them with sugar. Put the juice of the oranges and lemons in a pan with the star anise, cardamon pods and sugar and boil for until it is reduced to a syrup. Toast the flaked almonds lightly.

5: When you take the cake out of the oven, leave it in the tin. Leave it to cool for a few minutes, then poke it full of holes with a skewer or tooth-pick and then pour over the syrup through a sieve. Sprinkle over the toasted almonds and orange peel.

Photos from 2024

Despite the rain it was a huge success!

Giving Back

First, thank you for your support over the 100+ years of the show's history.

Over the years our visitors and attendees at the Plant Sale and the Flower Show have been extremely generous both in taking part and in the cash spent on site as well as a few very generous larger donations from a range of local people. Steep Flower Show is a “not-for-profit local village event” run by volunteers.

Over the years, with strict financial control, a contingency fund had built up and the committee decided that we had enough of a cash cushion to be able to distribute some of this to local gardening / environmental projects supporting the installation of security measures at The Adhurst Allotments (following a tragic large theft); providing a new Chicken Coop for Steep Junior School and setting up a small fund available via application to Bedales Students for their chosen environmental project. In 2024, in honour of the new guests we are hosting in the area, we have bought and donated a number of British made spades which have been sent to Ukraine.

We are currently seeking similar projects in Steep to donate to, so if you have any suggestions please do get in touch via our email, Steepflowershow@gmail.com