Caythorpe’s St Vincent’s Church, Loveden Central Group of churches, to host Caythorpe Scarecrow Trail, Assembly Bangers and Harvest Festival

Get ready to scare the crows to celebrate all things Lincolnshire as a quirky new festival is aiming to raise valuable funds for a village church.

Caythorpe’s St Vincent’s Church, part of the Loveden Central Group of churches which covers other villages including Fulbeck, Brant Broughton, Hough on the Hill, and Carlton Scroop, is hosting a Scarecrow Trail and ‘Assembly’ Bangers Harvest Festival fundraiser this Autumn to help raise the thousands of pounds needed to keep the church open.

Church warden Jo Russell said: “We want the church to be a community space — churches belong to the community.

“We’re there to worship God, but it should also be used to benefit everyone and we’re keeping it open as best we can.”

Just some of the costs needed to keep the church going include a share of the £55,000 a year paid between the churches to pay for its reverend, £4,000 in insurance costs, and £10,000 for general operating costs.

As a new way to raise money, Jo was inspired to try a scarecrow festival after seeing similar events being run across the area, and seeing the popular festival where her daughter lives in Wetwang, East Yorkshire.

She said: “We’ve done a few concerts over the summer and we do the Christmas Tree Festival, but it gets quite cold during the winter and wanted to do something new to raise as much money as we can to help keep up with our running costs.”

The event will begin on Friday October 3 with a coffee morning in St Vincent’s Church from 10.30am to 12noon, where visitors can enjoy some cake and coffee while admiring the straw-stuffed creations before they are moved out to their positions around the village.

Donations for Grantham Foodbank will also be welcomed.

Then the trail will launch on Saturday between 10.30am and 4pm, and maps will be available from the church to follow the trail of scarecrows through the village, of which there are currently 10 scarecrows registered with plenty of room for more, before you head back to the church to vote for your favourite.

The scarecrows will have a Lincolnshire theme to celebrate our county’s official day on October 1. To register your scarecrow as part of the trail, email Jo on joannerussell49@aol.com

Stalls, refreshments, and games will also be running in the church during the day.

Then on Sunday, there will be a Harvest Festival service in St Vincent’s which includes Lincolnshire-themed refreshments after the service, including Poacher cheese, plum bread, stuffed chine, Lincolnshire sausages, and more.

During the service, guests are invited to join in singing ‘Assembly Bangers’, popular school hymns that were widely sung in UK primary school assemblies in the 1980s and 1990s, including All Things Bright and Beautiful, Shine Jesus Shine, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

Assembly Bangers have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, with comedian Jason Manford has even releasing an album of these songs, and an ‘Assembly Bangers’ set was performed at Glastonbury by James B Partridge this year.