With the carnival season finally over it’s the Bridgwater club The Gremlins who have swept up the most wins and finished as clear champions.

The Somerset County Guy Fawkes Carnivals Association felt their Lights, Camera, Action! Cart had it all when it came to judging each of the seven processions. The Gremlins picked up the Class 3 and 4 feature cart award with the Midsomer Norton Cup along with a cabinet full of silverware including the Butlin Cup, The Whitbread Trophy, The Chairman’s Choice Cup and the Keith Watts Memorial Cup amongst several others. It meant they were crowned overall champions winning the prestigious Starkey Cup following the exhausting round of seven carnival nights over the last two weeks.

Bridgwater clubs also featured in a number of other classes bagging cups, trophies and assorted first places by winning all seven carnivals in their section. Those rather saucy chaps at the Newmarket Hotel club picked up the Bridgwater comic Cup with their very popular take on the Wurzels song Oh What a Beauty, while the junior club Marina Sydenham seized the Bunch of Grapes Rose Bowl with Marine Ahoy!

Smandy’s CC were also in the magnificent seven as they collected the Eileen Brunton Cup in the masqueraders with their Dia de los Muertos entry providing considerable colour on cold November nights across the county. Also in the masqueraders section although this time in the single adult class was i-Robot by A&ACC who also achieved the magic seven wins with the Doug Letherby Cup.

Carina Haynes also of Bridgwater joined the seven up club with Czarevna’s Glacial Odyssey bagging the Phillips Memorial Cup in the junior masquerade section in the process.

Dave Stokes of the Bridgwater Carnival Association said it had been a fantastic year for the clubs with numbers of spectators up, but also the standard of the entries had reached new heights. He said the world of social media had helped to spread the word about the carnival with interest from all round the world. There was also a new dimension to the event he said with the lantern parade, fireworks, school competitions and projects and even a literature element.

Next year’s carnival is on Saturday, November 5.