To Chirk Carboot Sale

Possibly the largest carboot sale within a 100 miles. Most human life is here. There must be over 500 stalls here on occasion. Perhaps 1500 people visiting the carboots. By 8.00am it's getting busy on a sunny day.

There are the traders, meat, fruit and veg, coffee and hamburger stands. car parts, keys cut, plant and flower sellers, cycles, golf clubs, everything for mobile phones, house clearers, you can even get a new tyre put on your car. Today I saw someone having their fortune told with cards. Cars and caravans also for sale.

All cheaper than shops or supermarkets.

The people, Welsh, English, Poles, Romanians, German, French, Pakistani, Africans. As well as the traders there are people deciding to loose all that rubbish they have built up, people emigrating, downsizing. Everyone knows the phrase "how much?"

Up the top end the new carboot sellers arrive. If you have anthing of interest your stall will be mobbed before you get your stuff out. They descend like a plague of locusts. Since we don't do carboots ourselves this is not an issue. It's best if there are at least two of you.

Amongst the carboots and stalls the predators roam amongst the crowds methodically going up and down each row eyes scanning the ground sheets and tables subconciously dodging the people, prams, children, dogs on leads and the sheep muck underfoot. It's hard work and can take up to three hours to get around.
Specialists in jewellery, antiques, books, tools and plant equipment, clothes. Ready to pick up items for little money a pound, five or ten that will go for 25, 50 or a 100 elsewhere. Knowledge that has been picked up for years through trial and error the key to success.

Best times to go. May to September.
It's open most of the year but retires to the top field in the Winter.
Best weather to go. Sunny.
Best weather not to go. Rain, wind and cold.

If you are selling. £8 pound a stall at the time of writing, big stalls pay more.
You need a table or polythene sheet ( blue tarpaulin). If you want to be a pro have a spare sheet to throw over everything if it starts raining. Try get a spot where your car shields you from any wind or sun. Sellers turn up the night before in caravans and motorhomes or after 6 am on the day.

If you are buying or just out for the day.
Look at the weather forecast the night before. We check Met Office Rain Radar before deciding to go on the morning. Appropriate footwear should be worn, women often turn up in white pumps and trainers, flipflops and mules.

The ladies also wear the most inappropriate of clothes, cleavage and builder's bums abound. Some women have triangular tattoo's near their coccyx, also some have put on thongs as well.

Do they do this to make you look when they bend over?

Lots of male crumpet for the ladies.
A voyeur's paradise.

Don't wash your hair the night before if we have not had rain for days it gets dusty. Rain means mud. Take pound coins, fivers and tenners. Twenty pound notes can be an issue.

The car boot sale is perfect for children's clothes and toys. Adult clothes, tools, plumbing bits, electrical bits, paint, household goods and cheap fresh food.

Good Points. Best carboot, loads of stalls and well run.

Bad points. Toilets dire, sometimes a 20 minute queue to leave site due to them not allowing you to take the nearest exit to the A483. I know a good way out but I'm not telling.
Good toilets to be had in the middle of Chirk.
Crime is just about non existent.

If you like watching people a fascinating place to go.

keywords: Chirk, car boot, carboot.