Creepy goblins and menacing witches will be skulking at a beauty spot because of the skills of four men with chainsaws.

The sinister creatures began life as storm-damaged logs, before sculptors revved up their chainsaws and whittled them into a variety of fantastical figures at St Ives Estate in Harden.

Visitors yesterday marvelled as sculptors fashioned the logs into rough outlines, before switching to smaller chainsaws to carve detailed figures that will stand along a planned nature walk.

The mystical figures, including fairies and dragons, will form the new guided Enchanted Forest in Betty's Wood behind Betty's Lodge.

Sculptor Rodney Holland said Bradford Council parks and gardens department approached him and fellow artists with a wish-list of ghouls, goblins, witches and sprites to populate the forest.

"We begin by knocking the rubbish off the log and shaping it into something roughly the shape of what we want," said Mr Holland, of Dumfriesshire in Scotland.

"Then you bring it down into a dragon shape like today, or whatever you're carving. I tend to just go with the flow and see where it leads me."

Mr Holland, 42, was a lorry driver before he took a chainsaw to a tree cut down in his garden and created a roe deer.

After a friend asked for a carving he built the business up, quit truck driving and has been carving full-time for six years. His larger pieces can fetch about £1,500.

Fellow sculptor Simon O'Rourke, 28, of Wrexham, combines a fine art training with his other job as a tree surgeon to mostly carve human forms.

Mick Burns, of Lincolnshire, said he got into chainsaw carving when he had fun whittling fallen trees in the grounds of the college he worked at into sculptures.

"I always enjoyed whittling wood into shapes, so giving me a chainsaw is like passing me a bigger version of a penknife," he said.

They were joined by Andy Sugden, a Council forester based at Peel Park, who has been sculpting for two years.

Ian Day, of Bradford Council, said the circular walk of particular interest to children and young families.

"Last year we had a successful chainsaw event so we were keen to build on it. We are hoping the walk will be ready in time for Spring Bank Holiday."

Visitors to the three-day event, which finishes today at 4.30pm, will also see a living willow dragon sculpture created by Cumbria-based Willowpool Designs.

The event is supported by the Friends of St Ives, which ran Easter games for children, Heaton Woods Trust, which ran a stall, and SureStart, which ran activities.