The 100th Long Ashton Flower Show ran on 5 September 2026 and the 2027 date is now set: Saturday 4 September. No results or trophy winners published yet.

Update, 20 September 2026: the society has published its account of the show, and set the 2027 date.

Two things have changed since our 11 September check, when the society’s page still carried the pre-show announcement and the 2025 photographs.

  • The 2027 show is Saturday 4 September 2027. The society states it plainly: “We’ll be back with the 2027 show on Saturday 4th Sept.” That is the first date published for the 101st show, and it keeps the show on its usual first-Saturday-in-September slot.
  • The 100th show is written up, but only in pictures. The society says the halls “were packed all afternoon, not surprising as there was so much to see, even in a ‘difficult’ year for growing”, and has posted six photo galleries: flowers and plants, fruit and veg, baking, jam and produce, art and crafts, children’s entries, and the wall displays made by pupils of Northleaze School. (Long Ashton Horticultural Society, Annual Show)

There are still no results and no trophy winners. The society has published no placings, no class winners and no cup list for the centenary, and it has not said whether it intends to. If you exhibited and want your placing, the society’s own contacts are the place to ask: longashtonhortsoc@gmail.com or 01275 392274.

That “difficult year for growing” line is the only editorial comment the society makes about the standard of the entries, and it matches a summer that was hard on vegetable classes across the West Country.

Membership is £5 a year and includes free entry to the annual show, so joining before next September costs less than paying in twice. (Long Ashton Horticultural Society, Join us)

The article below was written before the show and is kept as the record of what the centenary schedule offered.

Long Ashton will stage its 100th Village Flower Show on Saturday 5 September, and anyone in the village who wants to enter has until 5.30pm on Thursday 3 September to get a form in. The show runs from 2.30pm to 5pm at the Village Hall on Keedwell Hill, admission £1, with members and children free. (Long Ashton Horticultural Society, Schedule of Classes 2026)

There are 150 classes this year and it costs 30p to enter one. You are allowed up to three entries in the same class. Prizes are £1 for a first, 60p for a second and 40p for a third, which tells you what kind of event this is: a village show run by volunteers, not a county fair.

What you can enter

The society is blunt that you do not need a garden to take part. Alongside the vegetables and the dahlias, the schedule has classes for baking, preserves, home-made drinks, photography, knitting, pottery, woodwork and greetings cards. (Long Ashton Horticultural Society)

Section 1 is open to everyone and covers classes 1 to 112:

  • vegetables, including the heaviest marrow, the longest runner bean and the tastiest tomato
  • fruit, including the heaviest apple and three dishes of fruit
  • flowers, flowering plants, roses, dahlias and a class for pollinator-friendly flowers
  • flower arrangements, one of them in a tea cup
  • home-made cider, beer, wine, fruit gin and cordial, plus a class for three hen’s eggs
  • baking and preserves, from a gluten-free cake to sauerkraut
  • arts, crafts and 11 photography classes, one of them a novice class for anyone who has never won a prize in that section
  • the tallest sunflower, which you can either bring along or photograph next to a tape measure

Section 2 is for children, classes 113 to 150, split into four age groups from two-year-olds up to 15. Those classes include Lego models of the entrant’s own design, a miniature garden on a dinner plate, an animal made from garden produce, painted stones and a collection of 10 blackberries.

Four classes are there only because it is the 100th show: a centenary flower arrangement, a “showstopper” decorated centenary cake of at least 20cm, an illustration of the 100th Village Flower Show for 11 to 16-year-olds, and a decorated paper plate on the same theme for the youngest group. The society has also written a poem, “A Century of Blooms”, which the handwriting classes for the 5 to 11s are set from.

Two classes carry bigger donated prizes of £5, £3 and £2 for adults and £3, £2 and £1 for children. Both are called “Celebrating the Apple” and both leave the medium open: baking, painting, woodwork, clay, needlework, preserves, a photograph, a model, Lego or a poem.

The dates that matter

Key dates for the 100th Long Ashton Village Flower Show

Entry forms and fees have to be in by 5.30pm on Thursday 3 September. Completed forms go to one of five collection points, three of them public: the post box at the Community Centre, the Village Shop and Post Office, and The Little Tipple. The other two are committee members’ homes, listed with addresses in the schedule. One person only per entry form.

On the day, the hall is open from 8.30am to 10am for exhibitors to stage everything they have entered. Nothing can be staged after 10am. Judging starts at 10.30am, the doors open to the public at 2.30pm, and the trophies are presented at 4.30pm.

The schedule of classes and the entry form are both on the society’s website, as a PDF and an editable Word file. It is worth reading the regulations at the back before filling anything in, because the society says classes have been removed, added and amended this year, and preserves in particular will be disqualified if the jars are not labelled with the type, the main fruit and the date it was made.

Planning for the 2027 show: Saturday 4 September

The society has confirmed Saturday 4 September 2027 for the 101st show. Nothing else about next year has been published yet, so the schedule of classes, the entry deadline and the admission price are all still to come. The centenary pattern is the best guide there is until they are:

  • Entry forms in by 5.30pm on the Thursday before, so likely Thursday 2 September 2027.
  • Staging in the hall from 8.30am to 10am on show day, with nothing accepted after 10am.
  • Judging from 10.30am, doors to the public at 2.30pm, trophies at 4.30pm.
  • Entry fees of 30p a class, up to three entries per class, with £1, 60p and 40p for first, second and third.

Treat all of that as a guide to the shape of the day, not as 2027 fact. The society reviews the class list every year and says classes are removed, added and amended, and the 2027 schedule will be published on its website when it is ready.

The one thing worth doing now is joining. Membership is £5 a year and includes free entry to the show, and several classes are open to members only.

Why the 100th falls in 2026

The society dates the show in its present form to 1918. In September that year, as the First World War ended, a meeting of the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds, a friendly society, discussed “the question of holding a Flower Show for the benefit of members”. The show that followed in 1919 raised money for a distress and relief fund. Many of the order’s members had served in the war and a number never came back to the village. (History of the Society and the Show)

The organising committee agreed on the name Long Ashton Horticultural Society in February 1919, and set the first show for 4 August that year. The date clashed with the North Somerset Agricultural Society’s show, so the two were held together in Ashton Park. That did not go well. The societies argued, the 1927 flower show was abandoned altogether, and in 1929 they separated.

The other gap is the obvious one. The 1939 show was the last before the Second World War, and the show did not return until 1946. From 1936 to 1950 the Royal British Legion helped organise it, adding sports and dancing.

Two other details from the society’s own history are worth repeating. In the 1960s the show was opened by stage and television names including Beryl Reid, Hugh Lloyd, Patricia Bredin and Mrs Mills. In 1974 Long Ashton members put their questions to the Gardeners’ Question Time panel of Fred Loads, Bill Sowerbutts and Chris Brickell, chaired by Michael Barratt.

The classes have moved on. Past shows have included a collection of queen wasps, a collection of white butterflies, a ladies’ ankle competition, and guess the weight of the pig, in which the prize was the pig.

The village’s research past is still in the trophy cabinet, too. The Long Ashton Research Station Challenge Tray goes to the winner of class 27, three dishes of fruit, and the Bristol Evening Post Perpetual Challenge Cup goes to whoever takes the most points across classes 1 to 50.

What it means for you

If you want to enter, the deadline is the thing to note: 5.30pm on Thursday 3 September, two days before the show. Miss it and you cannot stage an exhibit on the day.

If you just want to look round, you do not need to do anything except turn up between 2.30pm and 5pm on Saturday 5 September with £1. Children get in free.

If you have a child in the village, the free route in is the children’s section. Entries are 30p, prizes are awarded on merit rather than against adults, and several classes need nothing more than a plastic bottle, some Lego or a painted stone.

The society also runs garden visits, talks and workshops through the year, and offers members discounts at local garden centres. Membership enquiries go to longashtonhortsoc@gmail.com or 01275 392274.

For other events across the district, see our guide to things to do in North Somerset.

Sources