St Michael and All Angels Church in Stokenham hosted a flower festival on July 23rd, to raise money for repairs to their stained glass window.

The event saw members of the community come together to celebrate the theme ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, with stalls from thirteen different local organisations from the Stokenham area including Stokenham Bowls club, Beesands Teas by the Sea, Knit and Knatter, Stokenham Evening WI, First Stokenham Brownies, Stokenham Area Primary school, Stokenham Garden Society, Stokenham Village Green association ad the Start Circle of Friends.

Reverend Mark Neave said: “We are delighted that so many organisations within our Parish community have joined us to celebrate our Flower Event ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Thank you to everyone for so joyously joining us.”

The event was open from 9am - 5pm on Friday 23rd, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th, and saw many local organisations come together for the occasion.

A spokesperson from Knit and Natter, who provided a knitted tree for the event, said: “It was a very successful event which was well attended.” They added: “It was nice to have the community together.”

Anne Foss, who helped to organise the event, hoped it would showcase all the organisations that reside in Stokanham and surrounding areas, encourage more people to get involved with local activities.

She said of the event: “We are really pleased with the fantastic response from everyone.

The flowers are still looking amazing and the smell is just wonderful. We have had people come back two or three times.”

As well as being filled with stalls from local organisations, the church was decorated with an abundance of flowers, thanks to the flower team at St Michaels and other local florists like Sophie Lake from Frittisombe Flowers and Meryl from Flowers from the Thatch.

Anne explained that as this was an event to showcase local groups, they wanted to get “as many local flowers as possible”, and she described the response as being “brilliant.”

Stokeley Farm Shop donated soft drinks for the event and Chillington Post Office sponsored the advertising.