Baldock Christmas Street market and festival set to be a cracker!

THE Christmas street market and festival planned for Baldock looks set to be a real cracker!

Organised by the Friends of St Mary's and The Baldock Town Partnership, the event will be held on Saturday, December 5 and is being supported by the Comet.

There will be many attractions including, for the first time in Baldock, a winter wonderland ice rink that will be open from noon until 8pm.

Also in the High Street, Santa will be arriving to be greeted by children and up and down the street there will be craft stalls, a fun fair, barbecue, live bands, a beautiful Christmas tree supplied by North Herts District Council and plenty of places where you can get refreshments including mulled wine.

At 5pm there will be a lantern procession to an international carol concert at St Mary's Church.

Great support for event has come from supermarket giant Tesco, the largest employer in the town, who have donated a laptop computer, a �50 voucher and other goods and toys towards the grand raffle.

Other prizes include a meal for two at the Vecchia Trattoria in Whitehorse Street and a voucher from Chapman's Butchers.

Tickets for the raffle costing 50p are selling like hot mince pies and Tesco say they are hoping to sell 500 a day. All profits from the festival go to the St Mary's Church tower appeal.

"The festival is costing �2,000 but it will be the biggest and best the town has ever seen," said James Lunnon, chairman of Baldock Town Centre Partnership, who is sales director of m-viron in the town.

St Mary's is still looking for volunteers to help with events at the church. Any who wants to help should send an email of cooper.baldock@virgin.net

On Sunday, December 6 there is a Christmas tree festival at St Mary's Church between 2-5pm when there will also be trips to the tower, refreshments.