Gillingham’s own Christmas Market is just around the corner!

Salisbury-based The Anonymous Travelling Market  have been working with Gillingham Town Team to organise the Gillingham White Hart Christmas Market on Saturday 12 December.

It will take place on Gillingham High Street  from 9am – 3pm.

 The market will host around 40 stalls selling crafts, gifts and produce as well as some seasonal goods.  The majority of the goods being sold will have been produced by local and regional artisans.

Most of the town’s shops will be open and the combination of local shops and the market will offer the public an opportunity to grab some of those final Christmas gifts and produce.

Steve Dauwalder, Operations Director for The Anonymous Travelling Market says:  ‘This will be a great opportunity for Gillingham residents and those from the surrounding towns and villages to shop safely in the open air.  We will have track and trace registration in place as well as hand sanitising points and a one way pedestrian system in the High Street for low Covid -19 risk shopping.’

The High Street will be closed to traffic but all of the towns car parks will still be accessible.  Organisers ask that those living in the town, where possible arrive on foot to allow those from further away to park and also give local shops and businesses more opportunities following the second lockdown.

Gillingham is one of just a few towns in Dorset  that have been able to go ahead with Christmas Markets in 2020.  Nearby Sturminster Newton and Shaftesbury were both forced to cancel theirs due to the recent lockdown, as their events fell on the last weekend of November.

Steve Dauwalder says he is hopeful that with the advent of vaccinations on the horizon,  some normality will start to come back to all events and markets during 2021.

The Gillingham White Hart Christmas Market is an introduction to regular monthly markets that will resume on Sunday 14 February 2021.