In recent years the Bottle Inn, in Marshwood, Dorset, home of the World Nettle (Urtica dioica) Eating Championship, has suffered a rapid tunover of tenants. The most recent licensees left early in January 2011, after severe cold weather late in 2010 had severely diminished their already meagre takings. Since then the pub has remained closed. Consequently no Championship was held in 2011, and the future of both the pub, which is said to date from the sixteenth century, and the Championship, which started in the 1980s, seems uncertain.

For further information on the Championship see R. Vickery, Naughty man’s Plaything – Folklore and Uses of Stinging Nettle in the British Isles, 2008: 13-4,

Image: The Bottle Inn, 2009; Trish Steel, Wicki Commons