SANTA had his nose put out of joint last Thursday, when he was ousted from his grotto in Dunster’s Tithe Barn – which turned into a polling station for the day.

He was allowed in to vote, along with Mrs Claus, but they had to stay out in the foyer for the rest of the time, along with the Good Fairy.

Santa has been an annual guest in the Tithe Barn for around 15 years. His grotto is set up by a team of volunteers from Dunster’s Village Society, which puts on fund raising events for village causes.

The grotto was already in place before polling day, having been set up for Dunster by Candlelight the previous weekend, and it needed to remain in the Tithe Barn for the society’s annual Christmas Bazaar tomorrow (Saturday).

“Fairy lights and the presence of elves and reindeer helped to make voting a bit more jolly than usual,” said Michael Johnson, a member of the society – who also goes under the alias of Santa Claus.

“It takes a team of ten people to put up the Grotto. It simply wasn’t feasible to take it down and put it up again.”

Along with Mrs Claus (Anne Johnson) and the Good Fairy (Cathy Chilcott), he was relieved to get back to normal duties once the polling station closed.