The Shrewsbury Flower Show is an annual event held in mid-August over two days (in recent times the second Friday and Saturday of the month) at The Quarry, the main park in the town of

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

, the county town of Shropshire, England. The show is organised by the

Shropshire Horticultural Society Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

. It was featured in the 2005 ''

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as the "longest-running flower show" in the world.

Post World War II

The show, not held during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, was revived in 1946, with the organising support of

Percy Thrower Percy John Thrower (30 January 1913 – 18 March 1988) was a British gardener, horticulturist, Television presenter, broadcaster and writer born at Horwood House in the village of Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire. He became nationally known thr ...

who was Shrewsbury's Parks Superintendent from that year until 1975, and acted as horticultural advisor and eventually chairman of the Shropshire Horticultural Society. After the show made severe losses due to bad weather in 1970, Thrower and Doug Whittingham both stood as financial guarantors to enable the show, which made a profit in better conditions in 1971, to continue staging.Article on Percy Thrower by Toby Neal, part of series on Midlands worthies.

Show features

The show is set out under a large number of marquees over the land area of The Quarry and notable features include: the display of flowers, fruit and vegetables; the sale of arts and crafts and three military bands, show jumping, various forms of music and entertainment, which includes a large firework display on both evenings. The show typically attracts around 60,000 visitors over two days. Chef celebrities, such as James Martin and '

The Hairy Bikers The Hairy Bikers are collectively David Myers and Si King. The pair of British celebrity chefs have presented numerous television shows, mostly for the BBC but also for the Good Food channel, that combine cooking with a motorcycling travel ...

', annually practice demonstrations to the public.

References

External links

Official Shrewsbury Flower Show website
{{coord, 52.707, -2.762, display=title, region:GB_scale:2500 Tourist attractions in Shropshire Shrewsbury Flower shows Gardening in England August events Events in Shropshire