Knob throwing is coming back to Dorset
After a five-year absence, there's a new venue this time
Dorset’s knob-throwing festival is back and ‘bigger’ than ever after its five-year absence.
The festival was cancelled in 2020 because no venue was available, scrapped again in 2021 due to Covid and didn’t go ahead last year because it had ‘grown too big’.
But this year organisers are expecting crowds of up to ten thousand people and have already lined up 5,000 knobs to be launched.
Organiser, Ian Gregory told us why the event is so popular: “It’s just fun and quirky, much like nettle eating and cheese rolling and things of that sort, it’s quintessentially English and catches people’s imagination.”
If you’re still wondering, ‘what is a Dorset Knob?’, well it’s a small, roundish, light but crispy bread roll that “you can’t throw very far,” Ian added.
The event came to be after a simple wager at the back of the pub in Cattistock, near Dorchester,
“I bet you can’t throw this knob very far,” a man said to Ian. “Challenge accepted,” he replied and the next day they had a knob-throwing competition.
Good fun was the verdict, so they did it again the following year but this time with a bit of food thrown in.
In 2017, the event became so popular that organisers reluctantly made the decision to find new grounds
The event grew year on year since it began in 2008, with the last KnobFest in 2019 attracting 8,000 people.
The one-day event features a range of fun knob-related events such as ‘paint the knob’, putt the knob’, the ‘knob and spoon race’ and ‘pin the knob on the Cerne Abbas Giant’.
Ian said: “I love the knob games and I enjoy watching families and kids doing it, it just catches people's fancy and makes for a great day out.”
Live music throughout the day will get Knob visitors jigging alongside the Cattistock Country Show crowd.
On Sunday July 14th, the “fun and zany” event will take place in Chilfrome.