Wine Tasting, Saturday 8th November 2025
Please join us for the last FGA event of the year! The wine tasting is always a popular night and is an opportunity to try 6 great wines accompanied by a cheeseboard. The event is at 7.30pm for an 8pm start in the Village Hall meeting room. Tickets are £25 per person and can be reserved by contacting us by e-mail or via the website contact form. Places are limited so book early!
Foxton War Memorial
One of the many things the FGA does to enhance our village is to look after the war memorial. This involves changing the planting when necessary and watering during the summer. After many years, the planters were in need of replacement and the committee decided to use the money raised at this year’s Village Show to replace the planters and plants in time for this year’s Remembrance Service. Thanks to Jon, Paul and Steve on the committee for setting up the new display at the memorial.
2025 Village Show
It was so good to see how many people entered and visited the village show on Saturday, September 13th. Astonishingly there were exactly the same number of exhibits as last year, but a different spread of course. Because of the unpredictable weather in the afternoon we were unable to have any refreshments outside so the lounge was very busy all the time. The atmosphere was delightful, lots of chats with friends and neighbours old and new, once again a most enjoyable village “do”!
A special thanks goes to our exhibition judges across the different categories and also to our exhibitors, which this year included:
Funds raised from the show (e.g. show entries, admissions, raffle tickets) will be used to replace the Foxton War Memorial shrubs and pots.
A list of this year’s prize-winners can be found here.
Thank you to everyone who took part, attended, and supported the show. Here’s to next year!
Wine tasting – save the date!
This is the FGA’s last event of 2025 and will be held on Saturday, November 8th. Tickets cost £25 per person and numbers are limited so book early. Please use contact form or e-mail us at contact {at} foxtongardens.org to reserve tickets.
Every house in the village has now received a copy of the show schedule. Do try to enter, even if only one item. Whether or not you have entered, do come along to the show, which runs from 2-4.30pm. You can see the entries, join the raffle, swap/buy some books, have a drink and cake, meet up with old friends, make some new ones, and have a great time at this very popular village event!
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Nature Recovery Strategy – Have your say!
The Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough region is now open to public consultation, where you can have your say on the strategy that has been developed and view the local habitat map that sets out the priority areas for nature recovery in the region. The consultation will run for 8 weeks, ending Thursday 11 September.
The consultation is available here with a link to the survey at the bottom of the page. This link also provides access to the full draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy document as well as other supporting documentation and the local habitat map.
Why is the strategy important?
Everything we do, from the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat is dependent on the natural world, yet England is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has one of the lowest proportions of land designated for nature in the UK.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies are an England-wide approach to targeting nature recovery. They set out priorities and actions to support nature recovery, inform sustainable land use planning and shape how nature-based solutions are delivered.
Further information
Printed versions of the survey and documentation will also be available at all 33 libraries within the region, as well as available to download. You can find your nearest library here. The team at Cambridgeshire County Council will be available via localnaturerecoverystrategy@cambridgeshire.gov.uk to help answer any questions you may have.
Peter Jackson from Scotsdales very kindly did the final judging on June 24th, he was very impressed with the gardens he judged:
First place: Hilary Mungovan, 55 Station Rd Joint Second place: Katie Hayward, 9 St Laurence Rd and Rachel Kirby, 3 Mortimers Lane
Many congratulations to them and to all who won their area. As usual the cup will be presented at the village show.
Village Show, Saturday September 13th 2025
Every house in the village will receive a copy of the show schedule this month. A copy of the programme is also available to view here. Do enter (if only one item), come along in the afternoon to see the exhibits, have some refreshments, enter the raffle and enjoy a “catch up” with friends and neighbours. In recent years we have been blessed with lovely weather for the show but whatever the weather the show is a great celebration of life in our lovely village.
Photography workshop
Many thanks to everyone who joined our photography workshop on Sunday 20th July 2025. The morning began with Catherine Cairns and Rachel Macintyre giving an enlightening overview of the history and conservation activities in the Dovecot Meadow. This was followed by local photographer André Neves giving a introduction to flower and insect photography taking us through the concepts, equipment and methods. He then lead our group out into the meadow for some practical photography experience. In the afternoon, we held an exhibition of André’s wildlife photography from the local area and also from his travels.
The gallery below shows some of our photographers in action in the meadow and also some fantastic shots of flowers and insects taken on the day by Torrie Smith, Theresa Penfound and Rebecca Rajendra.
Thank you to Catherine, Rachel and André for making this such a fun, informative and successful event.
You can find out more about André’s photography here and on his website.
Help our bees!
The recent hot and dry spells have left meadows parched and the impact on wildlife is considerable. Although some insects such as butterflies, wasps and ladybirds have thrived, bee populations have been heavily affected.
Wild About Gardens, which is linked to the RHS and The Wildlife Trust, has produced helpful information focusing on a different wildlife conservation theme every year. These action packs provide a guide on how we can help and encourage a range of creatures such as hedgehogs, beetles, worms, bees and bats. A link to their guide on how we can help bees, which have been particularly impacted by the heatwaves, can be found here and more information is on their website. Thanks to André Neves for the link!
Sign up for our wildlife photography workshop, Sunday 20th July 2025
Please get in touch as soon as possible using the website contact formif you would like to book a place on our wildlife and flower practical photography workshop in the Dovecot Meadow run by local photographer André Neves. This will be a great opportunity to learn, improve or advance your skills photographing our local flora and fauna. The morning workshop will be open to all levels of experience and equipment but limited to 20 participants (minimum age 16) and cost £5. In the afternoon, there will be a free to attend print exhibition and sale in the hall of some of André’s local wildlife images.
Tentative schedule:
09:30 – 09:40 Greetings and brief introduction of programme and speakers
09:40 – 10:00 Introduction to conservation activities in the Dovecot Meadow
10:00 – 10:20 Introduction to flower and insect photography
10:30 – 12:00 Practical session in the Meadow
12:00 – 13:00 Review w/ refreshments and exhibition browse
13:00 End of practical workshop
14:00 – 16:00 Local Wildlife Photography: exhibition and print sale by André
Village Show, Saturday September 13th 2025
Every house will receive a copy of the show schedule in August so don’t forget to put the date in your diary! The categories for the Photography and Craft categories at the Village Show to be held on Saturday, September 13th 2024, are as follows:
Photos:
Wildlife
Village life
Urban life
Night life
Home life
Craft, and an example of:
Painting
Embroidery or tapestry
Knitting or crochet
Sewing
Greetings card in any medium
Mosaic in any medium
Return of the 2024 cups
Cup holders from last year’s Village Show are asked to return them for engraving to IAN CONSTABLE, 11 Illingworth Way. tel 871508 (ian.constable1@ntlworld.com) as soon as possible and certainly by the end of July.
Open gardens
Our Open Gardens event was a great success! We would like to thank everyone who joined in, whether you opened you own garden, visited the gardens in the village, enjoyed tea and cake in the church (thanks to all our cake-makers and to Catherine Cairns in particular for her selection of homemade jams!) or made donations. More than £400 was raised for this year’s chosen charity Help for Heroes!
This Sunday we will be hosting our Open Gardens event. Programmes with a map of the gardens are now available in the Village Shop and can also be purchased on the day at St Laurence’s church where we will be serving tea and cakes. This year, all profits will go to Help for Heroes.
Sign up for our wildlife photography workshop, Sunday 20th July 2025
Local photographer André Neves will be running a practical photography workshop in the Dovecot Meadow. This will be a great opportunity to learn, improve or advance your skills photographing our local flora and fauna. The morning workshop will be open to all levels of experience and equipment but limited to 20 participants (minimum age 16) and cost £5. If you would like to take part in the practical session, please get in touch using the website contact form. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. In the afternoon, there will be a free to attend print exhibition and sale in the hall of some of André’s local wildlife images.
Tentative schedule:
09:30 – 09:40 Greetings and brief introduction of programme and speakers
09:40 – 10:00 Introduction to conservation activities in the Dovecot Meadow
10:00 – 10:20 Introduction to flower and insect photography
10:30 – 12:00 Practical session in the Meadow
12:00 – 13:00 Review w/ refreshments and exhibition browse
13:00 End of practical workshop
14:00 – 16:00 Local Wildlife Photography: exhibition and print sale by André
Open gardens, Sunday, June 22nd 2025, 1pm – 5.30pm
Come and explore some of the lovely gardens here in Foxton, stop off for refreshments in the church and hope for good weather. All profits will go to Help for Heroes in this year when we have been remembering the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
2025 Best Kept Front Garden competition
Peter Jackson (from Scotsdales) has once again very kindly agreed to judge the competition. Preliminary area judging will be performed by FGA committee members beforehand and the shortlisted gardens will be judged by Peter on Tuesday 24th June 2025. The Foxton resident with best kept front garden will be awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Cup at the Village Show in September!
AGM
Thank you to everyone who attended the 2025 AGM and especially to our guest speaker Judith Large from the Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital. Minutes from the meeting are now available.
Plant Sale and Swap
Despite a cloudy start, the sun eventually came out and it was lovely to see so many of you taking part in the plant swap, winning a prize in the tombola and enjoying some tea and cakes provided by the WI. Thank you to everyone who came along. We hope you found some new plants for your gardens!
FGA website updates
We now have a “Featured in Foxton“ section on the website where we will occasionally share news and stories related to projects and activities from the village. So far we have details of the Remembrance period Poppy Project being organised by the Foxton ‘Craft & Create’ Group, and an introduction to a local flower and insect photography project. If you would like to keep up to date with the latest news from the FGA, please enter your e-mail address in the Subscribe box to receive the latest news in your inbox!
For the last few years, André Neves has generously offered his time and expertise to judge the photography section at the Foxton Village Show. What you may not know is that Andre is himself an highly skilled and award-winning photographer with a specific interest in nature photography, focused on insects and their habitats, often in close-up.
André Neves
Last year, he started a new project in Foxton, photographing the wildflowers of the Dovecot Meadow throughout the year. Andre was kind enough to tell us more about this project and how it highlights issues of maintaining biodiversity and promoting conservation, which starts on our own doorstep.
How did you get into photography? I started my photography journey in the days of film, when I used to borrow my father’s reliable single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. As many, in those childhood and teenage years, I was mostly taking pictures of my family, our pets and a few of my holiday adventures!
Have you always been interested in photographing nature? I have always been interested in nature particularly the fragile interactions between species and their environment. Spending the long summer days of my childhood in the great outdoors was incredible! The thrill of looking for new species and observing their behaviours and interactions was always the preferred way of spending my leisure time.
Tell us about macro photography of insects and their habitats, what equipment do you use? My interest in close-up and macro photography has developed strongly after moving to Foxton over a decade ago and since joining a fantastic local photography club (see link below). A few of the members are incredible subject matter experts and I have learned a lot about local species and their habitats. You really have to be passionate about your subject to develop your photography. This applies in fact to every genre of photography. I currently use a digital SLR with a number of lenses including macro and short range telephoto.
What prompted you to start your seasonal project photographing wild flowers in the Dovecot Meadow? I am fortunate to live a short walk away from the Dovecot Meadow and so I have been able to witness over the years and over many seasons the great diversity of flora and insects that have made this important small conservation area their home. I am particularly fascinated by wild flowers and their adaptions to seasonal climate variation. Every year is different!
What other areas of the village have you found most rewarding when looking for wildlife subjects? Having lived in the southern part of the village for many years, I did a project a few years ago on the insect life living in the hedgerows nearby. I was amazed by the variety of species that you can find in such a simple yet incredibly important habitat.
What advice would you give to people wanting to get into, or improve, their photography? Joining a local photography club has been transformational in my photography journey. In such a friendly environment, you can often find a pool of experts with whom you can learn a lot. You can also find inspiration from other people’s work! Whether it’s nature, portraiture, landscape, travel or even mobile phone photography of any sort (!), there is always someone willing to help you. Many of the events taking place during the summer months are also a great way to get that all important field experience that will take your photography to the next level!
Below are some of André’s recent photos from this project.
In July, in collaboration with the FGA, André will also be running a practical photography workshop in the village focused on the flora and fauna in the Dovecot Meadow. The event will be open to all levels of experience and any camera equipment, including mobile phones, but restricted to 20 participants. The workshop will be held on Sunday 20th July 2025. More details will be posted here very soon in our June newsletter.
You can find out more about André’s photography on his website.
On Tuesday 15th April 2025, we held our Annual General Meeting in the Village Hall. The evening began with presentations covering recent and upcoming FGA activities, a financial report and an update on the allotments by Steve Tongish (FGA Chair), Rebecca Rajendra (Treasurer) and Rachel Harrison (Allotments Secretary), respectively. This was followed by the election of officers for the upcoming year.
We then moved to the highlight of our meeting, a talk by our guest speaker Judith Large from Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital. Judith gave us a insightful talk on the unique work of the hospital in the treatment and rehabilitation of hedgehogs as well as an overview of the current threats to our local hedgehog population and tips on how we can help and encourage them in our local outdoor spaces.
Don’t forget to join us for our annual Plant Sale and Swap which will be held this Saturday 17th May 2025 from 10am-12pm at the Village Hall!
Bring along your spare plants and go home with new plants for your garden. The WI will be serving tea and cakes and hosting a tombola and produce stand.
