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I could only manage a flying visit to Killyleagh, where Sir Hans Sloane's 350th birthday celebrations culminated in a Chocolate Festival this afternoon, in and around a marquee in the bawn of Killyleagh Castle - a magical venue for a well-organised and action-packed event under, as it turned out, a clear blue sky.
Sir Hans Sloane, born in Killyleagh in 1660, amassed an enormous collection during a lifetime devoted to natural history, which formed the basis of the first permanent collection of the British Museum, of which he was co-founder. The great man's other claim to fame, and the raison d'etre of today's event, was that he developed a recipe for milk (and drinking) chocolate after a voyage to Jamaica, which was picked up by one John Cadbury two centuries later and manufactured in his warehouse in Crooked Street, Birmingham.
