There’s something slightly creepy about driving through a small village that has been taken over by scarecrows.
As I pulled into the car park, I had already encountered numerous Daleks, David Tenant and a Xenomorph.
But this is normal for Wray, a quaint little village near Lancaster, who are currently celebrating their annual Scarecrow Festival.
Wray Scarecrow Festival returned on April 27, with the community paying homage to sci-fi characters with more than 50 installations.
As I pulled into the car park, I had already encountered numerous Daleks, David Tenant and a Xenomorph.
But this is normal for Wray, a quaint little village near Lancaster, who are currently celebrating their annual Scarecrow Festival.
Wray Scarecrow Festival returned on April 27, with the community paying homage to sci-fi characters with more than 50 installations.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm reporter Sean Glees and I've travelled to a rural little village today near Lancaster called Ray for the annual Scarecrow Festival.
00:06 You might just be able to see a glimpse of it behind me.
00:08 I'm going to take a little tour of the village today just to give you a little look around
00:12 and just show you some of the scarecrows available. On my travel just down from the car park
00:17 I've already bumped to several Daleks, a David Tennant and
00:20 ET as well. I think you can just see a glimpse of one of the moving ones behind me.
00:25 So yeah, I'm gonna take you around see if there's anyone I can talk to and just show you what there is on offer.
00:29 So this
00:31 festival began in roughly 1992 and it started by accident and this year's theme was picked by random.
00:38 I think they have like a
00:40 voluntary scarecrow committee, I believe and someone threw out the idea about doing a sci-fi theme and
00:46 this is what's happened.
00:49 And I've heard that the story of how this like came to be was totally by accident, the festival. It was
00:57 basically someone in the village was driving through France one day and they saw a man,
01:01 well, looked like a man hanging from a tree and
01:03 they went into the village to see what was happening and saw someone like a scarecrow on the side of a pond.
01:09 And I guess the idea just sort of
01:13 came over here as well.
01:16 So you might recognize that logo that is from Futurama and the Futurama crew are just here
01:23 and gonna take a look around the village themselves.
01:27 I have a scientist here conducting her experiments.
01:30 Spider-man and E.T. here and I believe off in the distance I can see Ant-man, so I'm gonna walk over there.
01:36 As you can see this place is absolutely stunning. So if you just want in a nice day out, I'd head over.
01:41 It's pretty cool. This is a upcycled couch that's been painted
01:51 from straw walls apparently a long time ago in a galaxy so far away.
01:56 No hope, no scarecrow.
01:59 There's another E.T. and I'm gonna head into town now. I saw this as I drove past.
02:03 There's a few really cool large scarecrows here, so I'm gonna show you. These are the larger ones I was talking about which are really, really epic.
02:08 These must have taken some time to create
02:13 and also keep them web-proof. I mean, it's not exactly a very nice day today and they're holding up well.
02:19 We've got the Invisible Man himself, which is really cool.
02:22 So as I walk around today, it's actually quite a quiet day because of the weather.
02:28 But this street feels really busy because I keep thinking, "Oh, there's someone standing there," and it's not. It's just another scarecrow.
02:35 But we've got E.T. over there again.
02:38 We've got Alien and Ripley.
02:40 It's just really funny.
02:44 We've got a little stall here with this layer here. And this is all felt, which must have taken forever.
02:50 It's very clever.
02:54 So the event is run by Ray Institute and the money that's raised goes to a range of voluntary organizations.
03:04 It allows people like the Scouts
03:07 and other things like that to use premises for free.
03:13 I'm just walking up another bit of the village now, and I believe this is an homage to Space Odyssey.
03:18 And I see a sign over there. So let's see if I am correct.
03:22 I was right, but technically this one is a Space Odyssey Ray.
03:26 Grumpy old man here.
03:31 He looks very snazzy in his scarf.
03:33 And I see another man over here. That looks like he's having a good time.
03:37 I think he's from the Matrix. Infamous bullet scene in the Matrix in
03:42 Scarecrow form. Didn't think I'd see that today.
03:44 Wall-E over there. And I'm going to take a little stroll down here and see what else there is to see.
03:59 Another E.T. on a bike. I think that's meant to be Michael Jackson.
04:09 Another Scarecrow over there. And I can see another friendly, familiar face over there. Another Wall-E.
04:14 If this wouldn't creep you out at night, I just spotted over there a Martian.
04:24 And imagine walking down there at night and not knowing that was around.
04:30 A few more here. Got another E.T.
04:39 And over here we have a wizard.
04:41 So I hope you enjoyed my tour.
04:47 I'm going to say this is one of my favorites, but there's definitely a few that I really liked.
04:50 And I definitely recommend checking it out for yourself as well.
04:53 I hope it gave you an idea of what to expect.
04:55 It's meant to be extremely busy some of the days.
04:57 There's a Scarecrow festival that goes down the center of the street.
05:01 And some of those giant ones that we saw, I think someone actually gets into them
05:04 and walks down the street, which is really cool.
05:07 As I said earlier, the last day of the celebrations is a Mayfair celebration
05:11 with food and drink and entertainment and everything.
05:16 And there's also fairground rides as well.
05:18 So definitely a nice day out.
05:19 And you get to see some interesting things that you normally don't see every day.
05:22 So I hope you enjoyed the tour and I'll see you next time.