After 450 hours of intense labour, three highly detailed carvings have been erected upon the roof of St Peters Church in Oundle. Local craftsman Richard McCrone designed and carved these exquisite four foot high sculptures with his team at St White Stone.

The sculptures are carved from a stone called Ancaster, which is an oolitic limestone mined in Lincolnshire two and a half miles from Ancaster. It is not as hard as many igneous rocks, but far more resilient than other sedimentary rocks.

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Local butcher Trendalls are preparing for Christmas with this year’s free range poultry sourced from Bedfordshire.

Trendalls have a huge variety of meats that is almost all sourced locally. For example their beef is from Grange Farm at Haddon, their lamb is from Grange Farm, Old Weston and Lutton. Their high standards have recently been celebrated with the British Pig Executive gold award for their pork and leek speciality sausage.

Recently a new range of homemade “Ready Meals” has been created, including favourites such as lasagne and cottage pie which can be brought straight to the table. All of these are made in-house with fresh locally sourced ingredients. They also stock a fine range of meats, cheeses, homemade cakes and other speciality products.

You can order your Christmas Trendalls turkeys now for the very reasonable price of around £40 for a standard four and a half pound turkey.

The Mill Hotel at Barnwell, once a watermill dating back to the Norman Conquest and featured in the ‘Domesday Book’, is now a historical landmark. The Mill has recently been converted into a restaurant ‘where the traditional and contemporary mix effortlessly’.

Set astride the River Nene, the tranquil location draws in many diners to experience its exquisite menu. Between the downstairs ‘rustic bar’ or the upstairs ‘sophisticated restaurant’, the menu offers traditional cuisine with a contemporary twist. Marianne Layden, of Oundle, described it as ‘simply stunning’ in a setting that ‘leaves you gawping from the main entrance onwards.’

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At the awards ceremony for ‘New Zealand Wine Merchant Of The Year 2008’ which was recently held in London, Amps Fine Wines overcame sturdy opposition from an impressive array of 500 large multiple retailers for the right to be able to exhibit the industry’s Gold Award.

A distinct and highly successful effort was made by Amps to introduce customers to wines of the region other than the familiar Kiwi Sauvignon Blancs, such as the highly regarded and coveted Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Continued…