Unexpected positives

Cops and cricketers, angels and cowboys. Dozens of scarecrows descended on a small village near Durham – all part of keeping spirits up during a difficult year.

Brancepeth, little more than a crossroads of houses beside its castle and medieval church, is picture-postcard pretty. But with no shops, no pub and the local café unable to reopen after the coronavirus lockdown, it’s a place that has to rely on community spirit. The scarecrows were conceived as a bit of fun – and captured the imagination of residents.

Josie Armstrong, Event Coordinator for the Brancepeth Community Association, explained more about the project.

“It’s the first time we’ve tried something like this in Brancepeth and it all grew from a little seed,” she said. “Somebody put up a scarecrow in the allotments and we thought it might be fun to do it right up and down the village. We expected maybe 10 people would join in, but we ended up with 26.”

They proved to be a hit, attracting visitors from elsewhere to see who they could find on the streets. Children warmed to the unexpected splash of colour along the roadside and enjoyed hunting for more figures standing guard next to garden gates. Designs ranged from whimsical – a lady clad in fuchsia pink, a cowboy patrolling a side street – to topical, with a masked and visored doctor resting under a tree, just down the street from notorious government adviser Dominic Cummings, complete with a map to Barnard Castle.

Brancepeth isn’t a unique example. Other Durham villages, notably Hunwick, have similar scarecrow festivals. As seen elsewhere during lockdown, when encouraged to create, people have decorated beaches as well as filling windows with rainbows. It’s a manifestation of a strong sense of community – and one that has only grown this year.

“There’s always been a strong community spirit in Brancepeth but, like everywhere, there would be some people who were maybe on the fringes of that,” Josie added. “One really positive thing during the lockdown was how even more people started getting involved. We’ve forged an even stronger partnership between the Community Association and St. Brandon’s church.

“We’re not completely in a bubble. We’ve had some people very, very ill with the virus and we’re mindful of that. The tea room closing down is also a real loss to the community. But, in spite of all the difficulties, there have been some positives.”

That helped to turn the Village Hall into a hub for takeaways, set up a VE Day celebration – complete with a drone flypast – and run a local newsletter, the Brancepeth Bugle. Bugles evoke another part of the village’s history; from 1939 to 1962, Brancepeth Castle was the HQ of the Durham Light Infantry, a legacy commemorated in the reconstruction of St. Brandon’s after a fire in 1998. The regiment’s cap badge featured a bugle and, when stationed in India at the turn of the 20th century, the DLI had its own ‘Bugle’ newspaper.

The Brancepeth newsletter, funded by the Parish Council, began as a contact sheet to ensure that nobody was left isolated during lockdown and evolved into a lively mix of practical advice and lighthearted features and quizzes. The final edition, number 15, went out on a high note with the results of the scarecrow festival.

“Thanks to Gillie, who edited the Bugle, we got this vast array of contacts,” Josie said. “People were quick share information about who could deliver to the village, who had what. And we found all sorts of different things, even someone with a mini flour mill in his garden so we could still get flour when there was none in the shops.”

And one of those scarecrows, on a bench overlooking the playing fields, gets a prime view of the summer sports activities set up for the children of the village. “They’ve been very badly affected by all this, so it’s nice to get them outside again playing badminton on the green,” Josie said. “We were able to get an AAP grant to run some summer activities and we’ve put together a busy programme. It’s been tremendous to see.”

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