The mellow hills of Charlbury, Oxfordshire, have been singed brown by the summer’s heatwaves. Yet the village’s cricket pitch remains twinkling green and finely manicured, watered by the nearby River Evenlode. “Our sports shall be seen/On the Ecchoing Green,” goes William Blake’s incantatory song of innocent English game-playing, an ode that can be applied just as pleasingly today despite the centuries.
On the cusp of July, this emerald eye blinking wide among the fields of Oxon plays host to the Charlbury Beer Festival, a volunteer-run event that raises money for causes across the county. But the star of the show is not the beer, nor the talks in the cultural area, nor the band tent, nor even the St Mary’s Church tea stand, but the Aunt Sally World Championship.
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