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Quest for heaviest gooseberry celebrates 200 years

News imageA small podium stage with the gooseberries placed according to heaviest weight on blocks marking first, second and third positions. Labels in front give details of growers' names and fruit.
News imageFour men are sitting at a row of tables with boxes of their produce on show as others monitor their quality. In the foreground, stacks of more gooseberries can be seen in their wooden boxes.
The prize and pride goes to the grower of the heaviest gooseberry
The society said the fruit was "not easy to grow"

Holmes Chapel may be better known for its more famous export - the singer Harry Styles - but it also has a niche tradition of seeking out the heaviest gooseberry.

This year marks the Cheshire village's bicentennial gooseberry fair, at which contestants compete for the prized "premier berry" award, bestowed upon the grower of the most weighty fruit.

At its peak, the prize was the equivalent of a month's wages but organisers now describe it as just "a quirky and frivolous activity".

Holmes Chapel Gooseberry Society vice secretary Andy Anderson said: "If you look back at what's happened over the last 200 years - all the different world events - people have got together on the last weekend in July and weighed off some gooseberries and had a few beers."

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