MOORS Valley Country Park had a special visit from one of the world’s best-loved monsters at the weekend, as part of the park’s celebrations to mark their 30th birthday.

The Gruffalo made VIP appearances on Saturday and Sunday, much to the delight of both children and adults in attendance, many of whom showed no fear in meeting and greeting the monster.

In aid of his visit, Moors Valley transformed its forest into the deep dark wood, with the installation of all the character sculptures from the Gruffalo story.

The new hand-made sculptures featured the mouse, fox, owl, snake, and squirrel, who join the existing Gruffalo sculptures to complete the collection.

Esta Mion, of the Forestry Commission, was acting as ‘Gruffalo minder’ on Saturday.

She told the Echo: “The kids have loved it, and the grown-ups have too.

“Nobody every grows out of loving the Gruffalo and this is a great opportunity for them to come into the woods and bring that story to life in the forest.

“The whole Gruffalo story is now illustrated through the gorgeous wooden sculptures that have been beautifully hand cut using a chainsaw.

“The artist that creates them has managed to use the original drawings to bring those characters to life in a 3D sculpture.”

Gary and Edit Bertalan, from Bournemouth, brought their two children, aged 5 and 2, to Moors Valley to see the Gruffalo.

“We saw a post on Facebook about the Gruffalo coming to Moors Valley and both of the guys are a big fan of Gruffalo so we came along,” they said.

“They have had a great time here today and the weather is amazing, we’ve been really lucky.”

The visit from the Gruffalo is just the beginning of the 30th birthday celebrations of Moors Valley Country Park.

Esta added: “This is just the start of it I suppose we’d say because the season takes a while to get going.

“With Easter coming there are more events planned and later in the year there’s a picnic celebration for the Highway Rat, there’s so much going on in the park this year.”