With the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials just around the corner, local hostelries will be gearing up to welcome visitors from all over the world
When going to a great sporting event such as the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials (May 2-6), much of the fun of the trip is to do with your foodie needs as much as the sporting spectacle.
Season visitors will either stock up their caravans with barbecue materials or venture to the many local hostelries, while others stay at the numerous pubs, bed and breakfasts and many top-notch hotels in the local Cotswold area.
All the local places love your custom, as Badminton is a boom time for them, but be prepared for a few delays in ordering. Very helpful young staff are brought in for the week, but you may have to be patient.
The Badminton Village Shop stocks up on all caravan park visitors’ needs, and there is also The Butts Farm butcher onsite. The village shop and the pretty lane has been featured in a Miss Marple episode on TV.
If you are a one-day visitor to Badminton, do give yourselves good time to get there, especially on the Saturday Cross Country phase. A nearly 70-year old traffic system has been refined to an amazing degree, but it does take time to filter that enormous volume of traffic into the park.
When on the site, there are so many ‘lunchie’ options. Many fans like to picnic at their car boots in the car parks before venturing into the shopping zone or onto the course to see the spectacular cross country. Do remember the cork screw and bottle opener.
Badminton has always also provided an amazing range of catering facilities. They don’t quite run to the set up in the earliest days when riders’ chauffeurs were looked after, but behind the scenes, the back room teams have a splendid ‘canteen’ at the back of the House.
There are corporate lunching opportunities, with a good table, CCTV and a members’ marquee, where a very good lunch and drink provided by Relish of Cirencester can be had at the arena side.
Next to the all-action Big Screen, all fast and street food options are available, plus there is a new food and drink sampling area, a more bespoke deli area just by the scoreboards, and the Lakeside Bar offering food and drink is very close to the action.
Badminton weekend is a very British institution which now welcomes many long-distance and international visitors to this special part of our countryside.
