CHILLI and cheese fans flocked to a unique festival that celebrates the best of both worlds.

A funfair, music stage and several stalls filled Lydiard Park as hundreds of people dared to taste all manner of sizzling spices and fragrant fromages.

For those less keen on the food, there were circus skill workshops, crazy golf and storytelling sessions.

Chris Simmons brought his five-year-old daughter Harper along. He said: "We come to this every year, it's a really good Swindon staple, it's a bargain and we've never had a bad time.

"We have a go on the rides, try the food - Harper loves the cheese - it's fun.It's good to see local vendors from Swindon and Wiltshire included with the ones from further away. A couple of them are my former Swindon College students."

Dean and Elly Ireland oversaw the Sugar Shack Cakery stall. Last year, the business helped feed 1,000 children by delivering sweet treats from the Town Gardens to Penhill and Pinehurst.

Dean said: "This is the first festival we've done and hopefully we will go to more. It was busier than expected, considering everything that's happened, which is good.

"People like to pick up something sweet on the way out, after trying all the hot chillies. Along with classic brownies, we do new and unusual things like 'bronuts' - a brownie and a donut combined, and have 300 affiliates selling our goods all over the country."

Kevin Gover and his fiancee Alison flew the flag for their Wiltshire Chilli Farm, which also appears at the designer outlet on Sundays.

Kevin joined the company in 2013 after being a regular customer since it was founded near Melksham in 2010.

He said: "After 26 years in corporate IT, this has become my life. The festival was great, people were eager to get out and about, we were pleasantly surprised.

"We focus on flavour as opposed to heat, that's what's important.. No matter how hot the chilli sauce is, you can always taste something, it's not hot for the sake of it.

"The mango one is always popular and the milder ones sell well at farmer's markets. Our hottest natural chilli, the Trinidad Scorpion, was the most popular purchase here because at events like this, people like to try the super-hot ones."

That scorching sauce starred in an episode of popular YouTube series Hot Ones and brought tears to the eyes of Idris Elba, who almost admitted defeat after he tried it.

Both days ended with a contest where six brave souls devoured nine increasingly-hot chillies in a row, with the spiciest hitting 2.2 million Scoville units.