THE town of Droitwich celebrated its role in history with a three-day festival over the bank holiday weekend.

The St Richard’s Canal Festival featured a jam-packed schedule of events based around the town’s waterways and its heritage in the salt industry.

As always, the Probus 87 Club staged a re-enactment of the miracle in 1248, when Richard de Wych made the town’s brine flow again.

Attractions over the weekend included a farmers’ market, classic cars, nature walks, a duck race and a dog show as well as a wide variety of music and plenty to eat and drink.

And the festival would not be complete without the display of narrowboats, lovingly restored and cared for, either being used for holiday touring, or in some cases for a much more absorbing canal-based way of life.

Among the stallholders this year was Andy Tidy, selling his home-made preserves and pickles from what must be one of the few canal-going shops of its type.

He said: “We spend six months of the year making them at home in Aldridge, near Birmingham, and then we spend the summer going up and down the canals of the Midlands, selling them.”