May Day celebration brings socially distanced sprites to Ellesmere’s Cremorne Gardens

A fairyland gathering of sprites and a towering goddess will help create a magical May Day celebration for visitors to Ellesmere’s Cremorne Gardens.

Ellesmere Community Arts Group, Fizzgigs, will be building the fairy scene on May 1 using the bandstand as the setting for the community of sprites and the 12-foot high goddess of spring, Primavera.

The magical scene titled The Sprites of Spring will stay in place until Monday afternoon for socially distanced visitors to admire. Fizzgigs musicians will also be providing live music.

The sprites and goddess figure, all symbolising Spring, have been built over several months by members of Fizzgigs and the local community who wanted to celebrate the end of a tough winter and look forward to a sunshine-filled summer.

“The restrictions mean that we can’t organise our usual events at the moment but we wanted to do something to celebrate May Day,” said Fizzgigs chairman Ian Andrew.

“The figure of Primavera is based on the angel that was outside St Mary’s Church at Christmas. We wanted to surround her with a gathering of fun loving sprites, some of them dancing around a maypole, others playing musical instruments and some just getting up to mischief,” he added.

The unveiling ceremony will be at the bandstand in Cremorne Gardens at 2pm. on May 1 and will also feature live music. The installations will be open for viewing from 10am to 5pm on May 2 and 3 with Fizzgigs musicians playing at 2pm on both days.

The group has also organised a competition for local primary school children to name two of the sprites with a small prize for each winner. The competition is split into two groups for children aged 4 to 7 and those aged 8 to 10 with each asked to come up with a name for two different sprites. Entries should be emailed to sprites@fizzgigs by Tuesday April 27.

The winners will be invited to attend the unveiling ceremony and be presented with their prizes by a local artist.

Details of the event and the competition are available on the Fizzgigs website at wwww.fizzgigs.co.uk

Pictured: Some of the magical sprites on show as part of the installation at Cremorne Gardens from May 1.