The Woolton Hill and Highclere Village Market raises record £10k for charity in 2024

The Woolton Hill and Highclere Village Market raised a record total of £10,000 for charity in 2024.

The final market of the year was held at Thorngrove School on November 30 and on the day the market’s management committee presented a £4,000 cheque to its charity of the year, Newbury Speakability.

Newbury Speakability – a local group which supports people with aphasia (speech loss) – also held a raffle and £3,500 worth of tickets were sold.

The remainder of the £10,000 total was raised at other markets throughout the year through fundraising and the market’s charity tearoom, which supports a different organisation each time.

The November tearoom – which raised £673 – was run by Newbury Cancer Care which will also be the market’s 2025 charity of the year.

There were around 65 stalls at the festive edition of the market this year, with a welcome addition of Santa’s grotto which provided free gifts to children who visited.

Market committee member Samantha Atkins said: “It was an excellent opportunity to do some Christmas shopping with our usual large selection of goods on offer and our visitors certainly seemed to have the same idea as stall holders reported doing very well.”