By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor
Volunteers at Hull’s Danish Church are rolling back the years to recreate favourite recipes from their homeland after starting the preparations for their Scandinavian Christmas market.
As well as filling their freezers with festive food, members of East Yorkshire’s Nordic community – some of whom have been helping at the market for more than 30 years – are stocking up with stylish Scandi design and decorations.
They and other volunteers are working flat out to make sure the shelves are full for the market on Saturday, November 29, which attracts people from across the North and is the biggest source of funds for the church.
Charlotte Theill, manager of the Danish Church and its cultural and community arm Nordic House, said: “We now only have a handful of church services here every year but we play an increasingly important part in the local community, supporting charities and providing a venue for the arts and social occasions. The Christmas market is at the heart of that.”
Recent research has found photographs which indicate the market may date back as far as the 1930s. They show that a bazaar was held in 1933 in the original church, which was bombed on the eve of its 70th anniversary in 1941 and rebuilt a few yards away at the corner of Ferensway and Osborne Street in 1954.
Hanne Hamilton, a Dane who lives in Beverley and has been attending the church since the mid-1960s, said the market in its current form was launched in 1969. Pre-Covid it used to attract more than 800 people over two days. Now it welcomes almost the same number in just one day.
Dining and Cooking