A GIANT and beautifully decorated hare statue was unveiled to school children in Hawkesbury last Thursday.

Wulfstan the Hawkesbury Hare was shown to Hawkesbury School pupils during their assembly before he will become part of the Cotswold Hare Trial in March.

The charity trail is part of the Cirencester March Hare Festival which has been increasing in popularity over the last three years.

Festival Director Florence Beetlestone extended their trail this year to encourage engagement between the Cotswold towns and villages as well as to encourage visitors from further afield to visit.

From March 25, distinctively crafted hares will reside in areas including Chipping Sodbury, Yate, Berkeley, and Stroud – and some will bound as far as Bath and Bristol.

Hawkesbury’s hare was painted by local artist to the area, Linda Smith who finished the delicate painting of Wulfstan just in time for the reveal, and making her first to complete one of this year’s 80 hare statues.

She based her artwork of the life of St Wulfstan (1008-1095) – the Patron Saint of Peasants and Vegetarians. His saint’s day is January 19 – the day of the unveiling.

The pupil’s received a history lesson during his unveil where they heard about the different elements emblazoned on his body.

The hare’s sponsor, and landlord of the Beaufort Arms in Hawkesbury Upton, Mark Steeds, said: “The hare tells the story of a great man called Wulfstan. On the middle of his back is a bishop’s mitre as he was the last ever Anglo-Saxon bishop, and under his front legs are a bishop’s crozier and the Doomsday Book.

“Around the base of his cloak there is a Bayeux type tapestry showing the legend of the goose, from his time in Hawkesbury during the 1030’s. It features the miracle of the Crozier in the Tomb, Edward the Confessor, the Bristol ship in trouble in the Irish Sea, and the banning of the slave trade in Bristol in 1090, and finally the building of churches in Worcester and Westbury-on-Trym.”

At the end of the festival in September, all of the hares will leave to find a new home when they are individually sold off at a charity auction.