Legendary Slade frontman Noddy Holder has been crowned this year’s King of the Sizzle and will champion the 14th annual British Sausage Week, which runs from October 31 to November 6. The event comes at just the right time for those Halloween and Bonfire Night weekend motorhome trips.

A life-long sausage fan, Noddy joins the British Sausage Appreciation Society to celebrate the British Banger and judge the finest banger recipes across the country,  awarding worthy contenders with a 2011 British Sausage Week Gold Disc.

The New Forest is just one area taking part in the week. Don’t miss these events:

Cider and Sausage Festival (October 28-30) with prizes for the best Halloween costume and best carved pumpkin, games, entertainment and live music, on the Friday night at the Crown and Stirrup, Clay Hill, Lyndhurst, SO43 7DE, at 7pm.

Create your own sausage recipe and get it made by Oakwood Butchers in Brockenhurst. Using New Forest Marque pork as the main ingredient, let your imagination run wild with seasoning and spices and email your own unique sausage recipe to New Forest Marque today (October 21). During British Sausage Week, the finalists’ sausages will be made by butchers and judged by panellists including James Golding, Head Chef at newly launched The Pig – a country house hotel with a modern twist. The prize includes a voucher for ‘bangers and mash’ for a family of four (two adults and two children) at The Drift Inn at Beaulieu Road, as well as a New Forest Marque apron and cookbook.

During British Sausage Week, choose from classic sausage, mash and onion gravy or more modern sausage fajitas, blackened Cajun peppers, onions, soft tortilla wraps, salsa, sour cream and guacamole served beside a roaring log fire at the historic Drift Inn in the heart of the New Forest. Walking boots, wellies and waggy tails welcome.
 
Sausages are a vital ingredient in the New Forest Breakfast  designed by New Forest chefs to include at least three foods with the New Forest Marque stamp of quality, which are often free range and organic and always local, right down to the bread.

Take a taste of the New Forest home with a copy of More Seasoning, a new cook book featuring recipes, such as Sausage Pockets.

You can buy local sausages at Longdown Activity Farm Shop, Setley Ridge Vineyard and Farm Shop and other New Forest outlets. 

Motorhome-friendly campsites recommended by readers for the New Forest include:

Sandy Balls Holiday Centre, Godshill, Fordingbridge SP6 2JZ.

With its swimming pools, 200 hardstanding pitches, pub and restaurant. It’s a five-star park, open all year and popular with families and anyone who likes a spot of gentle cycling, horseriding, walking or angling. On our Caravan Sitefinder website one of our readers wrote: “Sandy Balls (despite a name you can’t help childishly sniggering at) is, and always has been, a beautiful haven in which people can get away from the stresses and strains of modern life and get closer to nature and it’s surroundings. I have been going for years.”

Red Shoot Camping Park, Linwood, Ringwood, Hants BH24 3QT. Possibly the most exciting thing about this simple little campsite is that it is next to The Red Shoot Inn, with its micro-brewery, and is right in the heart of the New Forest, with ponies wandering freely around the pub. It’s open until October 31. A reader wrote on our Caravan Sitefinder: “We stayed here whilst visiting the New Forest and it was a well run and clean site. The staff were very pleasant and helpful and we had a wonderful and relaxing time. There is so much here and I wish we had stayed longer!”

Many of the New Forest’s Forest Holidays campsites close on September 26, but here are two gems that stay open until Halloween.

Setthorns Caravan & Camping Site, Wootton, New Milton BH25 5WA.

This secluded four-star Forest Holidays site has no toilets or showers, but there are premium pitches available. Open all year, this site offers a chance to get close to the wild deer and ponies roaming around.
Readers said: “We have been there winter, spring and autumn and each season there is always so much to see. For people interested in nature or photography it’s a haven for wildlife.”
“This has to be the most peaceful site I have ever visited. Although there hundreds of pitches, both with hookups and without, you are never overlooked as each pitch is at least 15/20 yds apart and each is divided by trees and bushes. Most are on level but hard gravel standings. This visit was not our first and certainly will not be our last.”

Holmsley Caravan & Camping Site, Forest Road, Thorney Hill, Bransgore, Christchurch BH23 7EQ.
This old World War II airfield on the edge of the New Forest is on the southern edge of the New Forest. Ponies graze on the roads leading to the site. The site offers takeaway fast food, groceries and camping essentials. One reader said: “We had a premium pitch, which was on hardstanding with hook- up. It was very nice. We got there early lunch on a Friday, which I would recommend as by Friday evening people were having difficulty finding the pitch they wanted. This is because all pitches first come first serve basis and find and choose your own spot.”

Fun facts for British Sausage Week reveal that:

  • Sausages are now so popular that five million British people eat them every day.
  • The nickname ‘Bangers’ came about during World War II, when the high water-content in the sausages turned to steam during cooking, making the sausages pop and sizzle in the pan.
  • There are 470 known recipes for sausages, but some of the most popular ones are the curly Cumberland, peppered Yorkshire, herby Lincolnshire and West Country Pork and Apple varieties.

Wherever you’re touring between Halloween and Bonfire Night, there’s bound to be a sizzling hot sausage-related event near you.