ALRESFORD is preparing for its biggest event of the year with the watercress festival this Sunday May 17.

The town celebrates the water-grown crop that provides employment for scores of people in the district.

The event, now in its sixth year, is expected to attract more than 10,000 visitors to the town, more than doubling its population for the day.

At a time of recession, it will bring a welcome economic boost to the town .

A highlight of the event will be the festival cavalcade. A horse and cart, followed by a procession of Morris dancers, musicians, street entertainers, The Green Man and school children, will bring the first leaves of the season into the town, to be distributed to festival goers by the watercress May King and Queen.

This year’s watercress cookery demonstrations will star several celebrity chefs who live and work in Hampshire including, from Sparsholt’s Lainston House Hotel, Andy MacKenzie and Mark Tilling (2008 British Chocolate Master).

Making its debut as part of this year’s huge festival, Broad Street, is a special Hampshire Farmers’ Market.

In recent weeks, budding amateur chefs have been creating a new dish using watercress and other local produce. On May 17, the finalists will compete with one of the celebrity chefs in the festival version of TV’s Ready, Steady, Cook. The ‘World Watercress Eating Championships’ are back by popular demand and there’s also live music, street entertainment, children’s cookery workshops and face painting.

Visitors can see the real thing on a tour at either Pinglestone watercress farm or Manor watercress farm.

Tours are running at 11.30am and 1.30pm at Manor Farm, (call 01929 463241 to book a place), and at 11.00am and 2.00pm at Pinglestone, (call 01264 732034 to book ).

Grown in mineral rich spring water, drawn from deep under the chalk downs of Hampshire, watercress is a natural superfood, gram for gram containing more iron than spinach, more vitamin C than oranges and more calcium than milk.

Its popularity was shown last week with reports that swans were gobbling the crop at a local farm and evading efforts to stop them.

Admission to the Watercress Festival is free, although there will be a charge for parking. The event, which runs from 10am until 4pm is organised by New Alresford Town Council, The Watercress Alliance (made up of Alresford Salads, Vitacress Salads and The Watercress Company), Alresford Chamber of Commerce, The Hampshire Farmers’ Markets, The Watercress Line and a host of other community groups. The Watercress Alliance is also the principal sponsor.