TRADERS in West Somerset have been celebrating after the Easter Bank Holiday brought sunny weather and their busiest weekend of the year so far.

The Easter bunny made off with the chocolate eggs at Dunster Castle on day six of their ten-day Alice in Wonderland themed trail.

Sarah Allen, assistant visitor service manager at the castle, saved the day from completely melting by seeking more chocolate for the “best Easter egg hunt yet.”

She said: “This weekend has been fantastic this year.

“We sold 1,400 trails by Thursday and ran out of eggs.

“I raided every shop I could for chocolate to make sure people still had something to take away with them.

“Overall, about 2,000 visitors took part in the trail – we usually expect around 700-800 visitors for this time of year.

“We saw an exceptional number of people and it’s so nice to see them visiting Dunster again – it really comes alive when visitors are here.”

With the sunshine came everybody’s favourite coolant – ice cream.

David Baker, owner of Styles Ice Cream, had his ice cream trucks stationed across West Somerset at Blue Anchor, Minehead and Porlock, as well as their shop in Minehead, which was prepared for the long weekend.

“People were actually coming back for more,” said Mr Baker.

“It’s so nice to see the same faces coming back because it’s not something we really saw during the recession.

“The extremely special weather definitely helped make it the busiest day of the year so far for us.”

Minehead town centre also benefited from the climatic trade boost.

Toyah Marchant, owner of Coaster Coffee, managed to tear herself away from the busy café for five minutes to talk to the County Gazette.

“It has been so busy here,” said Toyah.

“It’s definitely the busiest weekend we’ve seen this year.

“We’ve been running low on ice creams.

“We held a free draw for customers to win a hamper of chocolate goodies.

“It was really sweet because the gentleman who won the draw was on holiday with just his wife, so he gave it to a family in the café with three children – they were so excited.”