Almost uninterrupted sunshine made Urchfont Scarecrow Festival the best attended yet, helping it breach £100,000 of fundraising for local good causes over its 16-year history.

With a theme of singers, the longest established scarecrow festival in Wiltshire began attracting the crowds from first thing on Saturday morning.

Among the first visitors was a family from Cheshire who had seen an article about it in the WI magazine and had stayed overnight at the Green Dragon pub in Market Lavington.

Sunday and Monday brought even larger crowds to tour the 53 music legend scarecrows and solve the cryptic clues in the programme to enter the event’s competition.

Characters ranged from contemporary artists, such as Lady Gaga and Adele, to stars from an earlier generation, including Judy Garland, seated on the Top Green under her rainbow, to Carmen Miranda, complete with fruity headgear.

Bob Dylan was in evidence, as was David Bowie, with Johnny Rotten and a Moonwalking Michael Jackson also appearing.

It wasn’t all about scarecrows.

St Michael’s Church hosted a flower festival and the village hall held a well-attended art exhibition. The catering was run like a military operation with queues forming at the barbecue, tea tent and beer tent.

Beer, including the specially brewed Urchfont Scarecrow ale, ran out on all three days, but was quickly replenished by the local brewers.

Some 300 volunteer villagers manned the car parks, registration tent, catering counters and designed and constructed the scarecrows. Kitchens in the village were busy all weekend, baking cakes for the tea tent.

By the middle of Saturday the festival surpassed the milestone of £100,000 raised for local good over its 16 years.

Despite last year’s dismal weather, the festival still managed to raise more than £16,000 in 2012 and, although the final totals for 2013 have still to be tallied, last year’s fundraising amount is set to be topped.

Scarecrow committee chairman Rob Pendry said: “After so many years the festival runs like clockwork, but it is all down to the work of our volunteers who give so unstintingly of their time and effort.

“The weather was so much better than last year, which definitely affected the numbers attending. But, after last year, I think we deserved it.”