{"id":195282,"date":"2025-10-12T16:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T16:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195282\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T16:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T16:38:10","slug":"world-conker-championships-live-from-southwick-northamptonshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/195282\/","title":{"rendered":"World Conker Championships live from Southwick, Northamptonshire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Conkers and horse chestnuts &#8211; did you know?published at 15:26 BST<\/p>\n<p>15:26 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Horse chestnut trees in autumn dappled shade\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/015ff70c-afed-4b82-bafa-8d1f6534af68.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"4368\" height=\"2457\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They&#8217;re a staple of every park, village green and street in the country, but the horse chestnut isn&#8217;t actually from these here parts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was introduced to the UK from Turkey in the 16th Century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That&#8217;s probably why there&#8217;s so little British folklore about them. But what about conkers?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Conker in its spiky shell\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/b07dcf35-9764-4007-86b2-7e4173d2efe1.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"4189\" height=\"2356\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The first record of the game is from the Isle of Wight in 1848.Other uses of conkers include horse medicines, as additives in shampoos, and as a starch substitute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chemicals extracted from conkers can be used to treat strains and bruises. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">(There\u2019s hearsay that if you place conkers around your house it will keep spiders away, but there\u2019s no scientific proof that this is the case.)Also the Victorians wrote recipes for making conker flour. The seeds were shelled, ground and then leached to remove bitter flavours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Don&#8217;t try that at home &#8211; they&#8217;re poisonous.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.woodlandtrust.org.uk\/trees-woods-and-wildlife\/british-trees\/a-z-of-british-trees\/horse-chestnut\/\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Woodland Trust, external<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"COnkers in a red gloved hand\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d1adb8c1-72d3-4d96-b3ee-5fcca65213e3.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"4284\" height=\"2410\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Orla Moore\/BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conkers and horse chestnuts &#8211; did you know?published at 15:26 BST 15:26 BST Image source, Getty Images They&#8217;re&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-195282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}