Building a Better Future for Stockman’s Café: Join the Buy a Brick Campaign

The Stockman’s Café at the Three Counties Showground has long been more than just a place to grab a meal—it’s been a home-from-home for herdsmen, shepherds, pig farmers, and their families, who return to the Royal Three Counties Show year after year. But after more than 30 years of service, the much-loved café is showing its age. Now, with your support, it’s time to reimagine its future.

Why We’re Rebuilding

Since acquiring the showground in 1957, the Three Counties Agricultural Society (TCAS) has undertaken a long-term programme of investing in permanent infrastructure to better serve its community and reduce reliance on temporary, costly facilities. Today, the 90-acre showground boasts over 10,000 sqm of purpose-built indoor space, including four large exhibition halls, a conference centre, two cafés, eleven kitchen facilities, eighteen toilet blocks—comprising six external facilities and ten accessible toilets—alongside 240 horse stables, numerous pavilions, ancillary buildings and workshops, and a campsite. However, the challenges of rising construction costs and lost event income during the COVID pandemic have slowed our progress—making the ageing Stockman’s Café and its adjacent toilet facility our top priority.

Serving as a social and practical hub for livestock exhibitors and visitors during our many events, the current café has reached the end of its usable life. With planning permission secured and nearly £300,000 already raised, we are reaching out to our community to help close the funding gap and bring this vital project to life.

A Café with a Cause

The new café will do more than serve food—it will continue to support our charitable work, serving the farming community for generations to come. With a 300-seat capacity and modern facilities, it will accommodate more than 25 events each year, including the Royal Three Counties Show, canine competitions, flea markets, and Busfest—the world’s largest VW Campervan gathering.

For our exhibitors—many of whom treat the annual show as their family holiday—the café is a place of comfort, connection, and celebration. It provides a much-needed dedicated social space, affordable, good-value meals, and a welcoming spot where exhibitors can redeem complimentary and discounted food vouchers issued by the showground.

Buy a Brick: Leave Your Mark

This is where you come in. For a minimum donation of £100, we invite you to sponsor a brick on the new café’s Donor Wall. It’s your chance to leave a lasting legacy – your name (or a short message) will be engraved for all to see, a symbol of your support for the development of the much-loved showground.

Your brick will:

• Measure 8” x 4” and be displayed inside the new café
• Include a message up to 16 characters per line (including spaces and punctuation)
• Be installed as part of the permanent structure, subject to natural wear over time

Not ready for a brick? Donations of any size are still gratefully received and help bring us closer to our goal of building a new Stockman’s café and future projects at Three Counties Showground.

How to Donate

To reserve your brick or make a contribution:

• Visit our online donation portal here
• Email donations@threecounties.co.uk
• Or call us at 01684 584900

Find out more about the Buy a Brick campaign here (including FAQ’s and T&Cs).