Giant advent calendar created in county town

Feeling festive? You can’t get more festive than joining in with Frankwell Advent Windows, which sees 23 businesses and a church in Frankwell turn in to one giant advent calendar.

Advent Windows is being organised by Tim Vasby-Burnie, Vicar of St George’s Church in Frankwell, and the large-scale event will see each of the organisations unveil an advent window at their premises, inspired by a Christmas carol.

Local dignitaries are performing some of the unveilings and the community is invited to come along every day and see it happen live.

Photos of each window opening, which will all take place at noon, will be featured on the website which celebrates all the individual shops, restaurants and businesses in Frankwell www.funkyfrankwell.uk

The first Advent window, inspired by the carol “O Come All Ye Faithful” was unveiled at The Wheatsheaf by Mayor of Shrewsbury, Phil Gillam.

The next window was at Kirkham Funeral Directors, unveiled by Margaret Thrower, daughter of Shrewsbury’s most famous gardener and Blue Peter star Percy Thrower.

Provost of University Centre Shrewsbury, Professor Anna Sutton, unveiled the window at the Olive Tree along with Revd. Vasby-Burnie’s daughter Hannah, aged 14 and her friend and fellow congregation member Amelia Heath-Clowes, 17, who together created the window display.

Children at Woodfield Infants and St George's Junior Schools are also both designing windows for the event.

The Christmassy scheme ends on Christmas Eve with a festive singing trail starting at the Boathouse at 10.30am. The trail will visit each window, singing each carol, and end at St George’s Church for the final window unveiling at 12pm, followed by mince pies, mulled wine and other seasonal goodies.

Revd. Vasby-Burnie said: “This is a such a good news story for Frankwell with so many businesses coming together. Frankwell has become such a vibrant community which celebrates some really excellent independent businesses. And Christmas is such a wonderful time to for people to come together and enter into the community spirit.

“We wanted to put something together which celebrated our local neighbourhood on a grand scale and also remembers the meaning behind Christmas. We hope that people will come along to the window openings and especially join us for our festive trail on Christmas Eve.”

The full Advent Windows programme, a map and which carol has inspired each window can be found at www.funkyfrankwell.uk