More than 4,000 people flocked to a community bonfire in a north Shropshire village where a 35ft high phoenix was set alight.

This year’s Welshampton Festival of Fire was hailed a huge success, with plans already in the pipeline to stage next year’s event. The record crowd of spectators watched the extravaganza on Saturday evening, and stood by as children from the village took part in a lantern parade.

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A play with an environmentally friendly theme was put on and an after-bonfire party was hosted as part of the festivities.

Committee secretary Richard Jones said the event had gone “very well”.

“There were lots of people there,” he said.

“It was a very big crowd, everything went smoothly. I don’t know how much we have made, we haven’t finished counting it up. I should imagine it should be over £4,000.

“The weather wasn’t too bad, it didn’t put people off. All in all it all went very well.”

Mr Jones said next year’s event was likely to have a different format. 

He added that members of the organising committee were concerned about the vast number of people attending because of the size of the village and of the field and over potential problems with parking and marshalling.

“We think that next year we will change the format of the show,” he said. “We have had the same format for seven years and the feeling was it’s getting a bit tired.

Mr Jones added: “The success of the show is not exactly self-defeating, we are concerned that we have reached the maximum number of people that we can cope with.

“Four thousand is an enormous number of people.

“So we feel that next year we will have a different format.”

By Deborah Collins