RESIDENTS and visitors in Porlock will be treated to an evening full of entertainment, festive refreshments, and lots of late night Christmas shopping from the village’s unique and individual High Street shops next week.
Porlock will be lit with hundreds of Christmas lights, trees, and shop window displays for the occasion on Saturday, December 9, transforming the High Street into a winter wonderland filled with music and dance from 6 pm.
The West Somerset Brass Band, Morris dancers, and Bettina will be among those entertaining shoppers, while the children of St Dubricius First School will set the festive scene by singing carols in the parish church at 4.15 pm.
There will also be a Santa festival and a Santa trail to follow with lots of life-size and mini-Father Christmas displays in a variety of fun and festive poses all along the High Street, with shops, businesses, accommodation providers, pubs, and restaurants all taking part.
A Christmas tree festival is being held in St Dubricius’s Church, which will open at 4 pm on the day with a host of imaginatively decorated trees by local community groups representing a Christmas carol or song.
The Christmas tree festival will be on display until January 3, allowing plenty of time for people to guess the song depicted.
There will be prizes for the tree which most visitors match with the song, and for the visitor who matches most trees correctly.
Dovery Manor Museum will welcome visitors with festive food and drink and their a Christmas hamper Raffle, the village’s Visitor Centre will be open from 4 pm to 8 pm in the Old School Centre, and the community library will be open with a professional face painter, free for children, from 6 pm to 8 pm, as well as a book sale and other surprises, updates on which can be followed on its Facebook page.
Local Steampunk fans and their friends will be dressed in their costumes to join a promotion of their Steampunk-themed event which will be in Porlock next year.
Anybody who wants to ‘get suited and booted’ to add to the late night shopping Steampunk experience will be welcome to take part.
The inspirational Down to Zero pop-up shop will be offering cake to visitors and will help them to make a pledge to reduce their plastic use.
For every pledge, a piece of plastic will be removed as the youngsters aim to meet their target date of getting to zero on late night shopping day.
Father Christmas will also be visiting Porlock and will be in his grotto in the Olde Chapel.
At 7 pm there will be the ever-popular Santa Dash from Doverhay along High Street to the Top Ship for people of any age or shape, with Santa suits on sale in The Bagatelle.
Organisers promise lots of other surprises hosted by the shops and businesses along High Street.
The evening is being funded by Porlock Parish Council.