East Oxford Farmers Market celebrates its 20th anniversary
The East Oxford Farmers & Community Market marked its 20th anniversary over the weekend with a visit from the Lord Mayor of Oxford.
Visitors were treated to a bumper market including all the basics of a weekly shop such as veg, milk, cheese, meat (and cake!). Mushrooming up on Saturday mornings at the East Oxford Primary School, the market has been a fixture for many East Oxford residents, but it wasn’t always thus.
“I think we managed to cobble together six stalls, including a bread stall,” said Brian Levison, the market's founding Chair, about the first ever market on 12 August 2006. “We weren’t entirely sure anyone would come.”
Come they did, and the market now has a regular rota of over 20 stall holders, with bumper markets at Christmas. It was and continues to be mostly volunteer run, with volunteers doing everything from putting up signs to setting up gazebos, as well as being part of the market committee.
It remains committed to prioritising ethically made food and food produced within 30 miles of Oxford, with stalwarts including North Aston Farms (offering meat and dairy), Crudges Cheeses, Willowbrook Farm (eggs and meat), and Sandy Lane Farm (organic veg). Amazingly, Sandy Lane Farm first set up their stall at the market on the very first market – and they are still there at its 20th anniversary.
A brief history
But before we get to the first ever East Oxford Farmers Market, we need to rewind still further back, to 2005, when the (now defunct) East Oxford parliament was elected with a majority of Green Party councillors. One of the Greens' election promises was to establish a farmers market in East Oxford, and the call for volunteers duly went out at one of the parliament’s meetings.
Brian recalls: “I was sitting in the audience, and I don’t think there was much enthusiasm anyway, but I thought, well, I should do something with my life.”
In those early days, market volunteers and the market administrator Josie Webber found themselves doing it all: finding suppliers, collecting eggs and bread from the farms to sell at the market, staffing the stalls, hauling tables, recruiting helpers and for a short while, ferrying customers to the market by rickshaw.
This was because the market initially opened at the Asian Cultural Centre, tucked a little out of the way off the Cowley Road. With a limited budget, the market came up with unusual ways to advertise its location. “We’d stand outside Tesco’s on Cowley Road, offering people fresh produce, and a rickshaw ride down to Manzil Way,” recalls Brian. “It didn’t last for too long, but it was a fun, fun thing to do.”
A sense of community
The market moved to its preferred location of East Oxford Primary School in 2009 after the sad demise of the rickshaw service. If anything, though, the market's new location, with a café and the playground at the back of the school, led to a new sense of community – and many more customers. (A Mini Clarion fondly recalls Easter egg hunts spontaneously organised by a regular market customer in the playground.)
One customer said: “Going to the market became a regular part of our Saturday mornings – we’d get the paper, something to eat from the café, the children would run around with their friends in the playground, and we’d buy our produce for the week.”
Kat Luddecke (pictured above), a long-standing former volunteer at the market agrees: "What's so fabulous about the market is that it's not just where I do my main weekly shop – it's where I meet my friends and make new ones, see local kids grow from newborns into toddlers and teenagers, then go on into apprenticeship, university or business."
"It's an important part of our wider East Oxford community – and of a sustainable Oxfordshire economy where the money I spend is kept local. I can't imagine being without it."
The market has worked with O'Hanlon House to provide paid work for the people supported by the charity to overcome homelessness, and market customers raised over £1,000 to support an asylum seeker who volunteered at the market. If you were celebrity-spotting at the market, you might have caught Guardian journalist George Monbiot buying his veg, or the cooking writer and celebrity cook Sophie Grigson, running a cake stall and mucking in at the regular café run by her daughter.
Like many organisations, the market took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the loss of the regular café. But it continues to be a lifeline for its produce sellers.
This includes Tiddly Pommes, which started with an apple pressing demo on a single weekend at the market, and grew into a hyper-local apple juice enterprise running off the many unharvested apples across East Oxford that would otherwise go to waste. Rupert Griffin, who has been working at the market since its start, originally collected the apples himself, and now processes 25 tons of apples into single-variety apple juices. If you've only had standard supermarket apple juice, the difference in taste between different varieties is a revelation. (Our favourite is the Adams Pearmain.)
Tiddly Pommes apple juice was part of the market produce showcased at the 2011 BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards ceremony, where the market was the runner-up in the Best Food Market category. The market was later part of the All Party Parliamentary Group on markets, and involved in the inception of Good Food Oxfordshire.
Helen Hewlett, one of the many market administrators who have kept the market running over the years, says: "What I like most about the East Oxford Farmers' and Community Market is that it's brought multiple positive benefits for everyone for 20 years."
Brian adds: “I worked there for six years, and it was probably the best period of my life – I felt I was doing something. It was the best thing I’ve ever done, actually.”
The East Oxford Farmers Market runs every Saturday 10 am to 1 pm at the East Oxford Primary School on Union Street, Oxford. If you would like to volunteer at the market or become a member, email eastoxfordmarket@gmail.com for more information.
Photos by Roger Close