Minehead Hobby Horse a 'fearsome bit of theatre'

An 8ft (2.5m) long hobby horse has emerged from its stables in Somerset to celebrate the start of May.

Each year the horse, as it is known, frolics through the streets of Minehead, Dunster and Alcombe visiting bars and pubs accompanied by drums, accordions and dancing followers.

Shaped like a small boat, with the head of a masked man protruding from the middle of it, the Minehead Hobby Horse is thought to date back to the late 18th Century.

Paul Wilson, one of the organisers, said he had been following the horse for more than 50 years and is "besotted" by this "fearsome bit of theatre".