Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury Flower Show themed windows thrill the judges

People passing by shops in Shrewsbury were in for a treat as they spotted displays to tie in with the Flower Show.

Published
L-R: Claire Moore from Runners up: Peakes Travel, Laura Wilde from Salop Leisure (Orgnaiser), Winner 1: Lizzy Lewis from 'The Black Pearl', winner 2: Melanie Smith from 'Shropshire Cat Rescue', Bev Thomspon from the Shropshire Star (Organiser), Runner up: Brenda Docherty from 'Icing Tip

The annual Midlands News Association Shop Window Competition was held over the last couple of weeks and nearly 40 shops entered in to the spirit of things.

From cascading flowers to straw boaters and blooms made of crepe paper, the displays showed off the creative talents of the town's shopkeepers and volunteers.

Judges were Peter Bettis from Shrewsbury Business Chamber, Beverley Thompson senior account manager from the Shrewsbury Chronicle/Shropshire Star and Andrew Cross from the Shropshire Horticultural Society along with organiser Laura Wilde from Salop Leisure.

All were impressed with the standard of entries and enjoyed a couple of hours taking in the windows before making the tricky decision to pick the winners.

There were three categories, small, large and charity shops and a winner was chosen for each. There were also three runners up.

L-R: Claire Moore from Runners up: Peakes Travel, Laura Wilde from Salop Leisure (Orgnaiser), Winner 1: Lizzy Lewis from 'The Black Pearl', winner 2: Melanie Smith from 'Shropshire Cat Rescue', Bev Thomspon from the Shropshire Star (Organiser), Runner up: Brenda Docherty from 'Icing Tip

The winners were presented with a bottle of champagne donated from MNA, a voucher for LovePlants and tickets for the Flower Show. They were also each given a trophy to display in their business.

Mr Bettis said: "I thought the windows were wonderful and was really very impressed with the number of people that participated. The theme was the Flower Show and the efforts that people had gone to was great. The charity shops were particularly good, as they always are, and had really used their imagination."

Laura Wilde, from Salop Leisure, said: "We had a fabulous amount of entries this year which was great to see so many shops getting involved. The judges were really impressed with the efforts that had gone into the displays."

The winner of the small shop category was La Vie Vintage while The Black Pearl in Coleham was winner of the large shop. Taking the third title was Shropshire Cat Rescue.

The runners up were The Icing Tip (small), Peakes Travel (large) and Oxfam High Street (charity).