Scenic Cartmel Park was bursting at the seams in August 1991 as one of the largest crowds for many years attended the 109th Cartmel Show.

There were around 10,000 people at the show – a quarter more than in 1990.

By lunchtime, sales of catalogues had almost run out and stewards were kept busy finding parking spaces for visitors.

With the showfield bathed in sunshine throughout the day and only a gentle breeze wafting over the arena, organisers were ecstatic in view of the heavy rain the day before.

The Mail:

A bumper programme organised by show secretary Rodney Coward and his committee included cattle and sheep classes, sections for goats, poultry, pigeons, rabbits and dogs and equestrian events with competitions for heavy horses, children’s riding, open and pony leaping and private driving.

A special attraction was a demonstration by the county police dog display team.

Drifting across the park throughout the afternoon was the skirl of the bagpipes played by Barrow St Andrew’s Pipe Band, cutting a stirring sight when in mid-afternoon they marched into the main area to loud applause.

The Mail:

It was a good day for the Sharp and Watson farming partnership, who won the supreme champion in the cattle classes award with their two-year-old Charolais calf in heifer. Ballacharay, weighing 750kg, also won the best female cattle award.

John Jackson from Newton was among the awards in the sheep classes, scooping four major trophies with his flock of Suffolks.

Carole Harrison, from Low Meathop, and her brother Stephen, 12, gained a dozen rosettes with their Jacob sheep.

The Mail:

The best in show award went to Silverdale smallholder Glen Shapiro with a blue-faced Leicester ram.

John Moorhouse, from Cartmel, won the carriage private driving competition.

With Mrs Muriel Atkinson from Boughton alongside him on a Spider Phaeton drawn by two black Dutch friesians, John drove in faultless style to take the title.