Pumpkins fly for their last hurrah in Ellesmere event
With Halloween over, people in Ellesmere found a novel way to dispose of their carved pumpkins.
The town's first ever puppkin flinging event was put on by Fizzgiggs Community Art Group and saw around 150 people bring their pumpkins to the Birch Road recreation ground to see how far they could fly.
Pumpkins of all shapes, sizes and shades of orange were brought along to take their turn in the trebuchet – a custom-built catapult, constructed by group member Peter Cartlidge.
The crowd cheered and applauded as the small, solid pumpkins hit distances of over 70 metres before smashing into the ground.
But one, a 23kg whopper called 'The Beast' proved too much for the trebuchet – which had never flung anything over 10kg before – and ended up flying backwards and crashing into a fence.
There were laughs when a pumpkin named 'Brexit' took a while to get going, before its spectacular crash landing.
Peter said: "I built the trebuchet two years ago for the community bonfire, and we used it for hurling cannonballs.
"We thought, 'why not'? We have got the trebuchet and there are a lot of pumpkins around, and they are the ideal things to fling.
"It has been a great day and we have had some lovely feedback."
Peter said the group now hoped to make it an annual event.
