One County Durham town has been in the ultimate festive spirit this weekend (November 24-26) as its marketplace has been transformed into an ultimate winter wonderland for just two days.
Hundreds of people flocked to Bishop Auckland’s marketplace this weekend for its third annual Christmas Town event, featuring everything from festive food stalls to a Ferris wheel.
The weekend has been brought together by Bishop Auckland Town Council, Durham County Council, and partners, teams have been working since Easter to organise over 20 stalls selling wintery favourites including hot chocolate, churros, chicken, and handmade gifts.
Last year the town was overwhelmed by some 17,000 people that made their way to the event with 25,000 now expected to visit in 2023.
Now, following this year's success, key organisers of the event Ben Tinkler, managing director of Bridge Creative, and Thomas Wales, company director of Baccanalia, admitted they hope Bishop Auckland will become “the Christmas capital of County Durham”.
Thomas said: “Seeing the town like this is the reason we do it. It feels overwhelming in an emotional way as it feels like everything we have been working on for so long is coming together.
“To see it in all its glory is just amazing.”
Ben added: “It is a much bigger site this year and it's grown so much – we had 17,000 people last year and now we’re expecting over 20,000.
“The demand is there, so we wanted to make it bigger and better.”
Out of the hundreds of happy faces walking around the market munching on food and sipping hot chocolate, many had positive things to say about the event.
Janet Hilton Balmer, from Bishop Auckland, visited the market with her husband for the evening, and said: “I think the Christmas Town is really impressive, everything is great.”
She added: “There is plenty going on here and it is just lovely to see here in Bishop Auckland.”
Louise Moore visited for the evening with her young children from Crook, and was happy to see the marketplace filled with people.
She said: “It’s lovely to see something going on in the community, and it’s really nice to see such a large group of people around the marketplace.”
Read more on Christmas in the North East:
- AGLOW at Auckland Castle in UK's best Christmas light trails
- Your guide to Christmas Markets in the North East 2023
- Durham Christmas Festival among UK's top Christmas markets
One other visitor to the market was Jason Brown, from Canada, who visited the market on his trip to see Jeniffer Brown and was thoroughly impressed by what was on offer.
“It’s all really cute, they have the bandstand over there playing music and it’s a great event.”
Here are some more of our favourite snaps of the event.
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