Trio of Spalding churches in four-day festival
A trio of Spalding churches were united for a four-day festival featuring entertainment, flower arrangements and harvest celebrations.
St Mary and St Nicolas, St Paul's and St John the Baptist Church were filled with spectacular flower displays thanks to skilled arrangers who illustrated a variety of themes.
St John's hosted rock music from The Rocking Revs, who performed on Friday evening, and comedy was on the menu the following night at St Mary and St Nicolas with an appearance by Alfie Moore, the ex-policeman turned comedian who has a Radio 4 show called "It's a Fair Cop".
Among other highlights at St Mary and St Nicolas were craft sessions for youngsters, which included decorating pumpkins kindly supplied by David Bowman Ltd, church tower tours, a chance to have a go at bell ringing and an organ recital.
St Paul's Church began its flower festival on Friday - hosting the St Paul's Primary School harvest festival the same day - and ended with a harvest supper on Monday evening.
St Paul's churchwarden Mary Simpson said the church was very proud of its achievements and the altar decorations were "particularly beautiful".
St John's had an "all age" harvest festival on Sunday as well as a harvest lunch.
The Vicar of Spalding, the Rev John Bennett, said: "I was very pleased with everything that happened. The flower displays - as always - were amazing.
"There was a huge amount of laughter when Alfie Moore performed in the church - Alfie Moore himself is an absolutely charming and lovely man and it was nice to meet him."
Alfie had an audience of more than 140 people, with visitors from Ipswich, Scunthorpe and Bedford among those laughing for almost two hours with his ‘Fair Cop Unleashed’ tour, which included tales of escaped lions, divine intervention and a very confused ambulance dispatcher.
The festival, called 'A Spalding Harvest', was a departure from previous years when the three churches would normally hold flower festivals in the first week of May to coincide with the date of the former Spalding Flower Parade.
Mr Bennett said there were always coach tours to the villages, and these have continued unchanged, but the town centre churches didn't have them.
"It didn't make sense for coaches to come into town for the flower parade so we haven't got that continuity," he said. "We thought instead we would do something around harvest time."
Flower festivals remain popular with visitors.
Mr Bennett said: "It's something we enjoy doing and the people who come always tell us how much they appreciate it."
The Rev Aileen Workman, associate vicar at St Mary and St Nicolas, said: "We shall get together with our friends at St Paul’s and St John’s to look together at hopefully repeating this lovely occasion next year."
St John's churchwarden Sally Sneath also hopes for a repeat performance next year.
She said: "Everyone was so positive about it and we had some lovely flowers and some really great people who offered their time and came to do displays for us."
The Rocking Revs duo are familiar faces in Spalding - the Rev Chris Harrington used to be the captain at St John's while the Rev David Maylor was at St Paul's.
Sally said: "We were rocking in the aisles."