Brattleby, Lincolnshire has no village shop, pub or school. So why it became home to dozens of garden gnomes over the past decade until recently remained a mystery.
It all started back in 2003. Late in January of that year, 14 residents of that small community five miles north of Lincoln in the east of England woke and parted their curtains to be greeted by an amazing sight. Brightly coloured ceramic gnomes had appeared overnight in their gardens.
Not everybody was pleased. Mike Spencer, 59, chairman of Brattleby parish council, hates them. He collected some and concealed them in his garage. “I absolutely detest gnomes and the majority of people living in the big houses would not want gnomes in their gardens either,” he told curious media that came to investigate. “It’s a bit of a mystery. It’s such an odd thing to happen. The people down the far end of the village say our end is the posh end and I have a sneaking suspicion it is some one from the other end of the village.”
Next year, the gnomes appeared again, this time waiting until June. Thirteen villagers discovered the garden decorations had been left in their driveways. Who had left them and why was baffling. No security lights had been tampered with, not a dog disturbed nor were any sounds of footsteps on gravel heard. Not everyone shared the parish chairman’s disdain, however. Little three-year-old Olivia Blackbourn was delighted to get a new gnome having broken one of the previous discoveries just the week previously.
Again in midsummer of 2005, they came for the third year in a row waiting patiently amidst the purple pansies planted beneath the village sign. In December of the same year, a bus driver pulled up to stop in the village to find no less than 20 statuettes in the bus shelter there. This time a letter asking people to give them good homes accompanied them. It read: “We are the Gnome family; we are currently gnomeless.”
So it went on, year after year. News of bucolic Brattleby spread from the United Kingdom to the United States, Cambodia to Canada, India to Bahama. Still no one came forward to admit to the pranks. Some tongue-in-cheek speculations attempted connections with computer games. Others accused a local supplier of such ornaments, one “Mike,” to pound (dollar) stores, only to be rebuffed – “gno, gno,” he might have said.
Never before in Brattleby hamlet’s long history has there been such gnomish knavery. The village traces its origin back to mediaeval times when a Norse man named Brot-Ufr farmed there. In the 11th century came a church, St. Cuthbert’s and by 1881 there were 148 people, enough to support a village school. The 2001 census listed just 113 however, nary enough to support school, shop or pub but apparently to make it a place of gnome sweet gnome.
The little folk continued to appear every summer. Most people smiled and a few even adopted the new village inhabitants that had, after all, at least doubled the population. Then in October 2013 the mystery finally unravelled with the passing away at age 61 of Peter Leighton of Main Road, Brattleby.
His son David, 32, revealed that facts that had driven some frantic at a eulogy to his late father. Ten years ago, he said, his cousin arrived back from the first Poundland shop in Lincoln with amongst many things, an ornamental garden gnome. His father, a retired civil servant with a sense of humour, suggested the mischievous plan.
They planned their route carefully with the aid of a map of the village, avoiding security lights, dogs and gravel. Carrying the gnomes in two big rucksacks they silently made the deliveries to the slumbering recipients. Peter’s wife of 34 years, Erica, didn’t really approve. She thought they were tacky. “I didn’t want him to do it at first because I thought it was a daft idea. He loved to make people laugh and thought the idea that people would draw their curtains and see a load of gnomes outside might raise a smile – he was right, it did.” And smile people did for ten more years.
Eight years ago, David explained to the assembled churchgoers, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Earlier this year he had learned that the cancer had spread and he had just a short while to live. They both agreed then that it is was time to come clean and admit to being behind the long-running prank. When the villagers heard the truth, the packed church rang with laughter – exactly the way Peter Leighton would have liked it.
The next day a garden gnome was discovered on the doorstep of his Brattleby home.
