The world’s longest conker caterpillar has been created at CONKERS, the award-winning visitor attraction in the heart of The National Forest.
The Guinness Book of World Records has confirmed that the attempt in December 2018 to build the world’s longest conker ‘caterpillar’, created by the Davies family from Sutton Coldfield, has successfully broken the world record at more than 16,000 conkers long.
The Davies family began making the conker caterpillar to raise funds for their local Scout troop, of which sons Edward and James Davies are members. The family spent almost two months collecting, drilling and threading the conkers before presenting it at CONKERS.
The caterpillar was officially counted at CONKERS by local accountants Charlotte Jackson and Louise Dobson and contained 16,847 conkers. Local surveyor Steven Nicholson of Fisher German professionally measured the caterpillar and declared it to be 341.2 metres long. Park ranger Joe Hall from CONKERS was also on hand as a specialist witness to confirm that the caterpillar was made entirely from conkers/horse chestnut seeds.
The boys’ mum, Liz Davies said: “Our enthusiasm got the better of us and we decided to try to set a new world record. We had some great days out collecting the conkers and loads of fun threading them on and watching the caterpillar grow.
“We’d like to thank the wonderful staff at CONKERS for hosting the event – what better place could there be to set the world record for the longest conker caterpillar than CONKERS!”
Now that the caterpillar is officially in the Guinness Book of World Records, it will eventually be broken down to make smaller caterpillars to raise funds for scouting.
Nicky Carlton at CONKERS added: “We were delighted to host this exciting world record attempt and we’re thrilled to hear that it is has officially been declared the longest conker caterpillar in the world! Well done to the Davies family for all of their hard work.”
