And this year’s Big Sunday Festival at Tweed Green attracted more than 2000 visitors.

Pastor Ian Gray from Peebles Baptist Church said: “We were delighted with the turnout. Obviously the weather helped, that was great. “It was really important to build on the success of last year’s event, and although we haven’t finalised the exact figures, the numbers are certainly up on last year.” A number of changes occurred for this year’s event, and Mr Gray believes that contributed to the increased turnout.

He said: “We were keen to have more community and crowd-based events this year. It was important that we had something for all age ranges. So we had tug-of-war competitions, wall climbing events and Bucking Bronco for the younger members of the audience.

“For the slightly older people, the Refresh tea tent was much bigger this year. We had the Peebles Old Bletherers tent, with photos of old Peebles, so yes, we were deliberately trying to make sure there was stuff for every age group. And hopefully we succeeded in that.

“On a deeper level, we had the Hope tent this year, which was something we were trying out for the first time. “That was a great opportunity to let people hear about the real reason we were doing this, which is about the love of Jesus.

“It was great to be able to deliver that message in a relaxed setting on a warm summer’s afternoon. The feedback we had is that it was well received, so we will certainly look at bringing the Hope tent back again next year.”