Dumbledore and Dr Dre star at Urchfront Scarecrow Festival
Straw versions of famous titled figures have been created as part of a village scarecrow festival. Thousands of people visited Urchfront in Wiltshire over the bank holiday weekend to see scarecrows in the shape of Prof Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Prof Stephen Hawking and rapper Dr Dre.The annual event has raised around £250,000 for organisations like the Wiltshire and Bath Air Ambulance charity and Devizes Opendoors.Steve Osborne, chairman of the festival charity, said: "It's such a pleasure going around the festival incognito and listening to people trying to figure out the clues and just getting really positive reactions from them."
The theme for the 26th festival was titles and about 55 scarecrows took part, each with a clue to help people guess who it resembled."They could be a dame, a professor, a doctor, a sir, a princess," said Mr Osborne. "We have quite a big range - we've got Doctor Who, Professor Stephen Hawking, Dame Kelly Holmes and Dr Dre."
Previous themes have included icons of the silver screen, to mark the festival's 25th anniversary last year, as well as occupations and adverts.Many villagers took a sustainable approach this year, with old curtains used to craft Dumbledore's robes and a piece of straw plaited together to make his hair and beard. Sesame Street's Count von Count's organ was made using recycled items including carpet tubes and a pallet. The head for Prof Hawking had previously been used for scarecrows of Robocop, Sir Cliff Richard and Sir Michael Eavis. For the Marie Antoinette scarecrow, Parisian grain sacking was used to pay homage to the crop failure that led to the famine which triggered the French Revolution in the 18th century.Mr Osborne said the quirky event has a "positive" effect on villagers as well as people from further afield."The festival's just grown and grown and grown," he added.
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