Wiltshire village exhibits Martin Parr’s final photos of scarecrows and prize veg

Pictures from photographer’s return to Lacock after 40 years were taken months before his death last December The images are colourful, characterful and thought-provoking. They capture a flower show, a Women’s Institute meeting, a scarecrow festival. A local vicar features, resplendent in a union jack bowler hat, as does a band of bellringers and a bulldog called Billy. Four decades after chronicling life in the picture-postcard English village of Lacock in Wiltshire, the photographer Martin Parr returned to document what had changed – and what had not. The results of the project, which turned out to be Parr’s final commission and was completed just months before his death last December, are going on show at the National Trust’s Lacock Abbey. Andy Cochrane, the curator at Lacock, said working with Parr – who was globally recognised for his wry observations of ordinary Britons and British life – was a joy. He said Parr had been careful to make sure the village was onboard. “It had to be a community effort. I don’t think it would have worked if it had just been the National Trust working with a Magnum photographer. It needed to be a grassroots project. “Martin exp