RECORD-breaking crowds turned out for Wareham’s carnival procession on Sunday afternoon.

The theme for this year’s parade was ‘parasols and brollies’ however they certainly weren’t needed to shelter from the rain as the procession was blessed with sunshine and blue skies.

Almost 30 floats took part in the procession with the Gugge 2000 band and Dorset Youth Marching Band performing along the route for the spectators.

While, The Muddlecombe Men danced their way down the streets while wearing shorts, jackets and bow ties and carrying red umbrellas.

Some of the more unusual costumes on display included gun toting pirates, dancing girls and even dinosaurs.

It is estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000 people turned out for the event, which is around 1,000 more than previous years.

After the procession, carnival-goers made their way to Wareham Recreation Ground where members of the public were able to see the winning entries from Wareham Carnival’s annual scarecrow competition.

Sandford Scouts won the youth category, while Hunter’s Moon was named winner of the commercial category. The winner of the Facebook competition was ‘In Memory of JJ’ and the overall winner was Dina Brooks.

Visitors were also able to enjoy stalls and performances by the Poole Field Gun Display Team and mountain bike riders.

This year’s event also featured an extra marquee for sheep and an interactive animal show which was used by youngsters of Wareham St Mary primary school for their disco on Thursday, while the Wareham Cubs even camped out on the Rec during carnival week.

Ian Davey, chairman of Wareham Carnival, said: “It’s been awesome. It’s so nice to see so many people from Wareham here.

“I thought we always get hit with bad weather around the time the kids break up for the school holidays and this year I thought let’s cover all bases and make the theme parasols and brollies.”

Mr Davey, who has been involved with Wareham Carnival for 18 years, praised the sponsors, volunteers and people who had bought programmes for this year’s event.

He said next year’s event would be “even better” and he had already thought of a ‘trousers or dresses’ theme for 2019.