A CHOCOLATE shop in Cirencester has got a taste for the town’s upcoming hare festival by producing a solid chocolate hare statue.

Lick the Spoon has produced a chocolate hare weighing over 10 kilograms in time for next month’s Cirencester March Hare Festival.

Businesses all over town are getting involved in the new festival by sponsoring and decorating hare statues of all sizes, from five foot tall to a more realistic hare height, ready for next month.

Lick the Spoon produced Hartley the chocolate hare which will also go to auction like the other hare statues after the festival. He can be seen sitting proudly in the shop’s window on Black Jack Street.

Lick the Spoon owner Matthew Short said the chocolate creation was made by his wife Diana.

“I can’t take the credit for Hartley as it was Diana, who is a great artist in her own right, who made him.

“He took four days to make. You have to melt the chocolate to such a high temperature it becomes like clay.”

The Cirencester Hare Festival gets underway on March 29 with a sculpture trail of over 30 five foot hares being dotted all over town. They will then go to auction in early October with all money raised going towards The Churn Walkway and related children’s projects.