SOUTH Milton Church Fete has raised more than £2,300 to help repair the church tower after they were kindly offered a new venue.

Bob Breese, churchwarden, said that the event was ‘venue-less’ until Elizabeth Ewings kindly stepped in and offered them her garden at the old school house. He went on to call the fete ‘very successful’ and was ‘enjoyed by everybody’ in the glorious weather.

The event had stalls selling plants, books, ice-cream, toys, cakes, five tables of bric-a-brac stalls, a very busy cream tea stall, an Adumasa stall, a charity supporting three village in Ghana and a Pimm’s stand.

There were also games to play a coconut shy, bowls, golf, Hook The Duck, disk golf and the Rev Daniel Hartley running the Splat the Rat stall.

The raffle was very successful with prizes donated by the Village Inn, the Soar Mill Cove Hotel, the Cottage Hotel, the Church House Inn, Avon Mill Garden Centre, the Creeks End, the Thurlestone garage and Lidstone’s Butchers.

The money raised will go towards the church tower repair fund. After failing to receive a government grant for the work, South Milton are now looking to raise £40,000 to repair the 13th and 14th century building.

Bob concluded by thanking ‘everyone who came, everyone who helped, Elizabeth for kindly allowing us to use her garden and Jan Turner who organised everything along with her helpers.’