Bentley Heath Country Market is celebrating its 40th year in 2014 but the roots of the market go back to the efforts of a Canadian visionary, Mrs. Alfred Watt in the First World War.   When the first English Women's Institute was established in 1915–1916, it was patterned on the style of the groups in British Columbia.

   The first undertaking of the Women’s institutes in Britain was to increase food production.  Markets were set up in rural communities, but the produce was also sent into towns.

   After the war pressure from local tradesmen brought about the closure of all these markets except for the one in Lewes, which is still trading today.

In 1932 The National Federation of the Women’s institute, with the help of a grant from the Carnegie Trust, appointed Vera Cox as marketing organizer.  She drew up model rules and wrote the first marketing handbook.  W.I. Markets rapidly proliferated.

   The W.I. is a charity while the Markets were not.  They were run as co-operatives and enabled not only WI members, but the unemployed, retired ex-servicemen and women, to earn a little pocket money whilst working from their own homes, by selling surplus produce.  The Market organization was kept at an “arms length” relationshiup with the W.I. until finally, in 1995 the Markets were separated as W.I. Country Markets Ltd.  In 2004 the use of the W.I. initials was discontinued.

Our market started off in 1974, operating out of Dorridge catholic church hall, , moving to Bentley Heath in 1993.  This was just ahead of the “Great Jam Debate”   in 1995, when an Environmental Health Officer in Cleveland decided to enact a clause in a 1955 bill – which stated that preserved food to be sold, could only be made in premises registered under the Food and Drugs Act. These premises could not include domestic kitchens! Questions were asked in the House of Commons and fortunately good sense prevailed.

We continue to thrive at Bentley Heath, offering the public food made in local domestic kitchens, plants grown in local gardens, vegetables, meat and eggs from local farms and locally produced craft items.

Come and have visit us one Friday morning and see the quality of what we offer for yourself and then have a cup of tea or coffee and a slice of cake to round it off.

Margaret Twigg & Ursula Bates, Dorridge W.I. Market Jan 1975

Read the memoirs of Joan Spriggs, written in 2014, 31 years after she joined the market