Newmarket Carnival Club was formed in 1976 when Geoff and Marion Paisey took over The Newmarket Hotel in Bath Road, and as well as Geoff, the other founder members were Kieron Howes, Adrian Jones, John Moate and Dave Hill.
The first Newmarket cart, built at the old Bridgwater Football Club car park in 1977, was called The Pharoaoh’s Barge and entered into the open feature class.
In 1982, the club started building at Morganians Rugby Club, and still do so to this day.
The club entered into the comic feature class for the first time in 1983 with Willy Wonker’s Chocolate Factory and took second place at Bridgwater Carnival. The club also won the Somerset County Guy Fawkes Carnivals Association comic county cup that year.
Over the years the club has enjoyed great success in the comic class, and have won the comic county cup a total of nineteen times.
The club’s current headquarters are at The Sydenham Centre, Parkway, and hold club meetings on Sundays at 7.30pm.
You don’t have to be crazy to be in the club, but if you are, it helps. As Barry Duddridge always says, “it’s not the winning, its the taking part that counts.”
Founder member, Kieron Howes, is the only person in the club who has been on every single Newmarket CC cart since it formed.
