FESTIVE fun will be the order of the evening in Malmesbury, with late-night shopping, entertainment and Santa's grotto on December 7.

The High Street will be closed from 5.30pm to 9pm and shoppers have been encouraged to walk into town rather than use their cars.

Malmesbury Town Band and The Salvation Army will be playing, and local charities including Malmesbury Twinning Association, will be collecting.

Santa will be setting up his grotto in the yard behind E and S Hardware in the High Street, and visitors can meet him for a charge of £1.

Malmesbury Library will be holding workshops and presentations of the Timescape Wiltshire CD-ROM between 4pm and 8pm . There will also be a drop-in craft session for children from 5.30pm to 8pm.

Malmesbury Rugby Club will be selling tickets at the Market Cross for an event called The Daisy Dolloper, to raise funds for a new pitch.

The club's pitch in The Wortheys, measures 100m by 650m and each square metre is being sold for £1. The club plans to release a cow on the field and wherever it dumps a dollop, there will be £1,000 for the lucky square holder.

"We are getting in to the spirit of Christmas and it would be good if crowds of people came along," said Alan Woodward, the chairman of Malmesbury Chamber of Commerce.

The late-night shopping comes hours after the Queen and Prince Phillip's visit to the town. Mr Woodward, Kevin Baldwin, of Customs Transformers Ltd, and Andrew Gill, a partner at Forester and Forester Solicitors, were guests at the Royal lunch at the town hall.