Spalding's is celebrating the season with its annual Pumpkin Festival

You'll be able to see sculptures, scarecrow competitions and a 'night light' display this year

The first event was held back in 2002.
Author: Charlotte LinnecarPublished 8th Oct 2022

You may have spotted some carefully crafted pumpkin sculptures in Spalding today, that'll be because it's annual Pumpkin Festival is underway, There'll be a sea of orange as families explore the town and learn about the industry. Throughout the day, there'll be a scarecrow competition and a 'night light' display.

Having first began in 2002, the event is still bringing new and exciting ideas to each year it runs.

Jonathan Nichols is the main Sculptor and Carving Artist, he says it's been great to be a part of such a great event:

"Spalding is now the largest epicentre of the production and growing of pumpkins, and I think that's a great thing. This is about celebrating the harvest of those pumpkins and that's the whole point of it, and with Spalding, people don't realise where we were the forefront of the tulip industry, we're now the forefront of the pumpkin industry."

Speaking about the sculptures this year, he says his favourites are the ones made from chicken wire:

"The lady with the lamp, is an offshoot of art I've never done before, so it's a full size lady in Victorian dress made out of chicken wire, and so when you look at it, it's like looking at a ghostly figure, and there she is holding a lamp. So, that's the one I'm happy with how it went."

There's expected to be over 12,000 visitors over the two day event.

Taking a big role in helping to organise the event is Jessica Hourn, part of the Communications Team at South Holland District Council. They''ve also been working as a team through out the summer with the community to prepare for the event:

"Through out the summer we've done craft activities with children at all of the events that we run, as part of our annual programme. So you'll see when you walk around, there's little toad stalls that we've made out of cable reels that were recycled and tin cans and glass jar lanterns and pom-poms."

The event lasts until Saturday afternoon.

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.