Village, Horticultural and Vintage Shows

The Pembrokeshire County Show at Withybush is the big one, but the small shows are arguably the better afternoon. Through July and August parishes across the county run their own: a produce tent, a livestock line-up, a vintage machinery rally, sheepdog trials, sometimes a gymkhana or a ploughing match.

The produce tent is the heart of it. Longest runner bean, heaviest marrow, best six eggs, a Victoria sponge judged on the height of its rise, flower arrangements in a jam jar by children under seven. The competition is not ironic. Some of these classes have been won by the same family for three generations and there is a definite atmosphere in the tent before the judging cards go out.

Vintage rallies turn out tractors that worked these fields sixty years ago, restored to a standard the manufacturer never achieved, alongside stationary engines chugging away for no reason at all.

Finding them. These are advertised locally — village noticeboards, shop windows, the local paper and community Facebook pages — rather than through any county-wide listing. If you are staying somewhere rural in August, ask.

Practical. Cash. Wellies or at least closed shoes, because it is a field with livestock in it. Dogs on leads and often not allowed at all near stock. Catering is a burger van and a WI tea tent, and the tea tent is better.

The honest bit. If you want polish, go to the County Show at Withybush. A parish show is small, slow, and entirely uninterested in impressing you, which is why it is worth an hour.