It’s preparation time for The Great Lydford Scarecrow Trail August 2026!

Last year’s Scarecrow Trail throughout Lydford was an amazing success. It was an absolute delight to see so many scarecrows popping up all over the village. This created a wonderful atmosphere throughout and drew visitors from far and wide. The scarecrows’ presence also helped raise much needed funds for the Nicholls Hall.

We’d love everyone who is able to create a scarecrow to make this year’s trail even bigger and better than last year. We’re therefore announcing it now to give you time to design your scarecrow and gather items needed to make it.

Theme: This year we have chosen the theme of Book Characters for the scarecrows. These can be human or non-human and hopefully this gives a good broad choice of recognizable characters to choose from.

How to Make a Scarecrow: If you need hay to stuff your scarecrow or help/advice making a scarecrow, we will be holding a Scarecrow Making Day in the Nicholls Hall in August – Date to be Decide

Prizes: There will be a prize for the best scarecrow (voted for by those who take part in following the scarecrow trail over the bank holiday weekend) and possibly further prizes if we can obtain them.

Costs: £3 to enter a scarecrow into the competition. £1 for a map to do the walk and vote for your favourite scarecrow.

Where should the scarecrows be placed?: Scarecrows should be placed in visible places on or safely near your property, but if you don’t have somewhere to place a scarecrow or live somewhere it won’t be seen by many people, we can place it for you.

When is the trail on?: This year’s trail will be running run from Saturday 15^th to Monday 31^st August, but don’t worry if you can’t put your scarecrow out at the start. Scarecrows can be put out any time from the 15^th August onwards, but if you wish to take part in the competition to win the prize for best scarecrow they must be in place by 9am on Saturday 29^th August.

What to do Right Now:

Think about which character(s) you would like make a scarecrow of.
Look out for/save items of clothing etc that would be good for making your scarecrow.
Save anything that would be good for stuffing your scarecrow with.

Pillowcases: If you’re throwing out any plain old pillow cases, save them for your scarecrow’s head or please pass them on to a member of the hall committee for someone else to use for their scarecrow.

LAST YEAR’S SCARECROW TRAIL WAS FABULOUS. WITH YOUR HELP WE CAN MAKE THIS YEAR EVEN BETTER!