A Festival of Scarecrows

The village of Lapworth held a Scarecrow Festival this weekend and we went along this afternoon to have a look round.

Lapworth is a pretty village with a rather interesting church which one of these days I will get round to visiting.



The Festival began in 2005 and this is the seventh with a theme this year of "Myths and Legends". As well as the scarecrows there was live music, refreshments, a craft fair and for children pony rides and bouncy castles. The money raised benefits local causes.




There were nearly 40 scarecrows but as some were in different areas of the village we didn't get chance to see them all so here is just a random selection of some of the ones we did see.

St George and the Dragon



There were a couple of Medusa's







Bill and Ben (Does anyone remember the childrens' tv show years ago? - it was one of my favourites!)







King Arthur and Queen Guinnevere



Mermaid



One of a group of Fairies



The Loch Ness Monster proved a popular theme











A reminder that it will soon be Halloween



Werewolf





Leprechaun



Neptune








We did see a superb straw dragon as we drove out of the village but even if there had been somewhere to stop the car it was surrounded by people so a photo would have been difficult.

According to the Festival programme scarecrows first appeared in ancient times - Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and Japanese and spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and the custom was later taken to America.

We stopped off on the way home to go blackberrying. At first I thought we were far too late



but we did manage to collect enough to make a couple of apple and blackberry crumbles




I'm just about to set up the moth trap so hopefully there will be a return soon to more natural history related posts :D.