HAMPSHIRE residents were left dazzled on the weekend (December 22) when a very different type of play came to town.

People lined the walkways in Park Lane on the chilly December day for the Otterbourne Mummers-a traditional group of villagers who don tapered costumes to reinact plays from a bygone age.

Mummers plays were once common across towns and villages in southern England at Christmas but sadly the number of actors decreased when they had all departed to fight in the Great War.

Nowadays, Mummers gather together to entertain the crowds through visual artistry just once a year still sporting the same wallpaper streamers sewn into their clothes as the generations before them.