Drunken scarecrows

There are two events in our local area that I always try to never miss, we’ve attended them for years and they just keep getting better and better. Not far from Bromsgrove is a little village called Belbroughton, every September they hold two great events, the ‘Belbroughton beer festival’ and the legendary ‘Scarecrow festival’. The events last for the whole weekend, the beer festival comes first and the scarecrow follows two weeks behind to give the village and its occupant’s time to recover.

Now if you are a beer & Cider lover this beer festival is definitely the place to be, certainly if you like to get a little merry. With over 100 locally brewed ales & ciders I can safely say there was not a sober person left in the place by the time we left in the early hours. The live music was nonstop with local bands taking the stage and after a few halves of ‘Black rat’ the dance floor was overtaken with moves not even the best disco dancer could imagine existed.

I must say though out of the two weekends my favourite is the Scarecrow festival. Every year there is a theme, this year will be ‘What makes Britain great’. All the villagers spend hours perfecting the perfect scarecrow and mount it very proudly outside the front of their house, highly experienced scarecrow judges from the village then stroll the narrow lanes crowning the best one. This event now attracts thousands of visitors and the village hosts plenty of activities from local Companies even the town vicar getting involved giving you chance to become a bell ringer & try the organ out in the village church, what more could you wish for. Also plenty of ale, pork rolls, and live music makes this weekend great.

Here are a few entries from recent years so I’m looking forward to what next weekend has in store.

I think it’s great that small villages and towns get together to hold events such as this and more should follow suit. Instead of sitting at home on our internet and tablets, computer games and watching the box, it’s great to see there are villages out there who know how important it is to keep community spirit alive. These events attract over thousands of people, Belbroughton only has a population of approximately 2500 people, so it’s clearly seen that they have many visitors, I wish people would have more courage to start events like these in their own towns & villages and bring the old fashion fun back to communities.