14315/3NEARLY 400 people of all ages went bonkers for conkers on Saturday at a family fun day at Westonbirt Arboretum.

More than a thousand conkers had been harvested from the arboretum's 102 horse chestnut trees for use in a variety of games.

These ranged from the traditional knockabout with a conker on a string, to a conkernut shy, a play on the coconut version, and wingseed throwing.

Westonbirt decided this year to turn its annual conker championships into a broader ranging family event.

Its education and interpretation manager Ben Oliver said that although the conker championships were always popular, it was difficult to gather visitors up together and maintain interest all day.

At Saturday's event, however, there were a range of games for people to dip into at their leisure. "It was felt if they came for the games they could have a walk and learn a bit more," said Mr Oliver.

"The evaluation we received was very positive indeed. It was a really good event 396 people took part doing a trail, activities and games.

"The weather was kind so that was wonderful and it was a really nice day.

"I think people appreciated walking around the arboretum.

"I was thinking that with 200 I would be pleased so to have nearly 400, I am over the moon."

Despite fears that playing conkers is dangerous with a school in Carlisle making conker players wear eye goggles as a safety restriction Mr Oliver said the event passed off injury free.

"We had volunteers manning all the stations and no injuries were reported. To me it's a fairly safe activity," he said.

"Obviously we had guidelines and people used our conkers rather than these super hard ones."

Mr Oliver said this year had produced a good harvest of conkers.

"Most trees this year are producing a lot of feed," he said. "The beech seems covered and the oak has a lot of acorns and the horse chestnut trees are the same.

"We certainly had over 1,000 conkers because we still have bags and bags of them left."

Mr Oliver said more events are planned in the next few weeks.

"The Autumn colour is tremendous and certainly pretty special. Probably in the next week or so the trees will be getting to their best," he said.

"There's always events on at Christmas and there's the Illuminated Trail, which happens in December at the weekends."

The arboretum is open from 10am to dusk and admission is £1 for children up to 18 and £7.50 for adults.