SIZZLING weather brought a sea of straw hats and long queues for ice cream on the last day of the Three Counties Show at Malvern on Saturday.

Extra fans were brought in to cool down sheep and cattle, while the Fire Brigade hosed down the pig tent, as the temperature soared to nearly 90 degrees.

The final attendance figure was around 98,000, down by 12,000 on last year when the show was open at the weekend for the first time.

But organisers, the Three Counties Agricultural Society, reported a positive response from farmers, traders and visitors to this year's Thursday, Friday, Saturday format. It will be retained for 2001, when the show dates will be June 14 to 16.

Chief executive Chris Milne said: "We're extremely pleased with this year's show and confident that we've finally achieved the correct balance in terms of dates."

He said the new layout and zoning of the agricultural exhibits had been a great success.

Mr Milne was particularly encouraged by the entry levels for the six new commercial cattle classes, which attracted so much interest that entries had to be closed before the June 1 deadline.

"We'll be building on the commercial section for next year and plan to introduce further breed classes," he said.

Show report, see pages 10 & 11