Each year in June a rather bizarre world championship is held in the Dorset village of Marshwood. The World Stinging Nettles Eating Championship is held at the Bottle Inn. Past competitors have travelled from as far away as Canada and Australia, and this years event attracted a record crowd of around 1,000.The contest began more than 20 years ago when two customers at Marshwood's 16th century Bottle Inn, argued over who had the worst infestation of stinging nettles. One of them said, "I'll eat any nettles of yours that's longer than mine." And so they had a competition. Though both men are now dead, the competition has carried on. The contest has separate men's and women's sections, and the number of entrants is strictly limited to 65. Only nettles grown in a field outside the village are allowed to be eaten. Competitors are served two-foot-long stalks of nettles from which they must pluck and devour the leaves. The bare stalks are then measured and the winner, after an hour of combat, is the one with the greatest accumulated length.
This year's male champion, Mike Hobbs, landlord of the New Inn at West Knightly, near Doncaster, managed to consume 48ft of nettles. The female winner was Mel Lang of West Bay, Dorset , who finished on level terms with Mr Hobbs.
