The tradition of “knob-throwing” has had to be cancelled again this year, with organisers saying that it was becoming too popular for them to manage. The festival was forced to cancel in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, but it is hoped it can make an appearance in the future.
For the uninitiated, the Dorset Knob Throwing Contest involved competitors throwing Dorset Knobs, a traditional biscuit, as far as they can. Other events as part of the festival include a knob and spoon race; guess the weight of the knob; knob eating and knob painting. The Dorset Knob was first introduced by the Moores family, who after the day’s baking, would use up left over dough, by adding butter and sugar and hand rolling them into balls. The dough balls were then dried out and were mainly eaten by labourers and manual workers, who would eat them with butter. It is believed the name came from the Dorset Knob buttons, which were a popular export at the time.
Speaking on Facebook about the event, the committee said: “It is with great sadness that the Dorset Knob Throwing and Frome Valley Food Festival is unable to go ahead on 1st May 2022. We had over 8,000 people attend the 2019 event, meaning it has reached such a size that it simply cannot be run by a small village committee. We’ve looked at various options, but sadly couldn’t make any of them work for this year for many reasons.
“We also sadly lost the support of our event management team late in 2021 and agreements with Moores Biscuits to provide the biscuits for the event’s games also took much longer than anticipated. We hope the event can return in years to come.”
