CHRISTMAS carols spread festive cheer to shoppers up and down a town's high street today.

Churches in Barrow came together with the town's Salvation Army to form a number of carol flash mobs on Dalton Road this lunchtime.

The groups gathered outside Thorntons, Debenhams, Sports Direct, The Forum and Santander before joining the Salvation Army band at the Spirit of Barrow statue.

Lieutenant Martin Davison, of Barrow Salvation Army, said: "It's been really good. It's great to see everyone with smiles on their faces and see the Christmas joy coming out.

"Obviously it can be quite a stressful time so it's nice for people to come together and share in carols.

"I think people associate the start of Christmas with hearing the band and carols and it brings back memories of people's childhood and assemblies and being part of a nativity play.

"For people who are going to be alone at Christmas this is great to join in and talk with other people, which is really good.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Christmas Carol flash mobs up and down Dalton Road this lunchtime <a href="https://t.co/qQ5AtuK48Q">pic.twitter.com/qQ5AtuK48Q</a></p>— Reece Hanson (@rhansonNWEM) <a href="https://twitter.com/rhansonNWEM/status/942035134685024256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">16 December 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Canon Gary Cregeen, team rector for south Barrow, said: "There is quite a good crowd of people here.

"We've been singing at five different stations around the town and people from all different churches in Barrow are here.

"It's great to come together at this time of year to celebrate what Christmas is all about.

"We did it last year for the first time and it was such a great boost and really encouraging at Christmas time.

"We found that as people are passing by they're really enjoying it."