Dragon Boats, Street Food and 400 Antique Stalls: West Kent's Busy Weekend

It was a weekend to be out and about across West Kent. Both banks of the River Medway in Tonbridge filled up on Sunday for the Tonbridge Lions Dragon Boat Race, the drums and paddles drawing the biggest cheers of the day, while a short walk away the Tonbridge Food & Drink Festival kept the Racecourse Sportsground busy across Saturday and Sunday. Away from the town there were antiques at Detling, classic cars at Edenbridge and live music at Cranbrook, all in warm early-autumn sunshine.

The dragon boat race is one of the fixtures of Tonbridge Lions Club's year. The club - the first Lions club founded in the UK, in 1949, and still one of the largest - runs it as a charity day, with crews from local businesses, schools, scout groups and community organisations paddling traditional dragon boats through a series of heats towards a grand final. The Lions say they have raised and given away more than £275,000 across the community over the past decade, and crews also use the day to raise money for their own causes: this year's entrants included teams fundraising for the South Tonbridge food-crisis charity Nourish and the children's charity Momentum. In the final, the Boars with Oars crew took the honours in a time of 36.96 seconds, just ahead of Mums and Dads Army (37.18) with Anatomy third. The Lions have yet to confirm this year's total; last year's race drew a record 30 crews and raised around £28,000.

Over at the Racecourse Sportsground, the Food & Drink Festival returned for its second year, run with Tonbridge Farmers' Market. Entry was free, and the line-up ran to dozens of stalls - artisan cheese, bread, fudge, coffee and specialist teas among them - alongside street food and cooking demonstrations from local chefs. It was open 11am to 6pm on both days.

The Kent Event Centre at Detling, just outside Maidstone, held its Antiques & Vintage Fair on both Saturday and Sunday - billed by organiser Love Fairs as Kent's largest, with more than 400 indoor and outdoor stalls selling everything from furniture and jewellery to collectables and retro homeware. In the town itself, the Sevenoaks & Tonbridge Concert Band played a free open-air concert in Brenchley Gardens on Sunday.

The Edenbridge Motor Show returned to Gabriel's Showground on Sunday, run by the Eden Valley Chamber, with hundreds of vehicles on display - classic and sports cars, tractors of every era and more - alongside family entertainment. Edenbridge Parish Church had held its autumn fair the day before.

In the south of the borough, Cranbrook's free CRAFFEST music festival ran through to Saturday, filling the High Street with around 30 bands playing blues, rock, folk and jazz. In Tunbridge Wells itself there was a candlelit classical concert at St James' Church on Saturday and an artisan craft and gift market at One Warwick Park on Sunday.

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council had billed its share of it "a packed weekend". Source: Tonbridge Lions