Northumberland business up for Countryside Alliance awards

Jan 20 2010 by Brian Daniel, The Journal

A HAT-TRICK of Northumberland businesses are in the running for national awards after scooping prestigious regional titles.

Belsay Post Office and shop, RG Foreman and Son butchers at Norham and The Country Barn at Widdrington have all won North East regional titles in the fifth annual Countryside Alliance Awards, known as the ‘Rural Oscars’.

They now go forward to the Grand Final at the House of Lords in London on February 3 and are up against winners from 12 other regions in the running for a British title. The 2009 awards celebrate the characters, skills, traditions and enterprise of the countryside.

The Country Barn picked up a hat-trick of its own, winning a Countryside Alliance regional award for the third year in a row.

The farm shop, coffee and gift shop picks up the rural enterprise Award, to go with last year’s best diversification prize and the 2007 best rural retailer.

The barn was set up by husband and wife team Hugh Annett, 48, and Sarah Oakey, 38, in redundant buildings on the couple’s 1,000-acre Widdrington Farm in 2006.

The farm, which has been in the Annett family for almost five centuries, provides all the beef and lamb for the shop.

Sarah said: “It is quite an achievement – third year running and we have only been open three years so it is not bad.

“It could be third time lucky but at the end of the day it is the award for the North East, that is what is voted for by the customers.”