Man is woken by suspected burglars - but opens curtains to see this herd of cows on his lawn

Richard Bowie, 39, was stunned by the sight of four bovines scoffing plants and strolling across gravel outside his front window on Sunday (25 Aug).

The carer was given a rude awakening at around 6am after the cows strayed from a field around 1,000m from his home.

Several witnesses described seeing the runaway cattle marching down the leafy streets of Waddington in the Ribble Valley, Lancs.

But villagers were less than amused after the farmyard animals left a trail of destruction including trodden cow pats littering the streets.

The owner, a farmer, eventually managed to restore order and ushered them back within a few hours.

Richard, a father of two young children aged 14-months and seven-weeks-old, had just woken up for an early feed with his newborn when he realised his garden had been invaded.

He said: “It’s a dormer bungalow so I sleep downstairs and there is gravel outside the window which was open.

“I could hear someone moving around, at first I thought it was someone trying to climb through the window.

“I moved the curtain and was taken aback when I saw that there were cows everywhere in the garden and up the street, but I just left them to it.

“The cows were eating the plants at the side of the driveway but they did me a favour to be honest because it saves me having to cut them back myself.

“I have lived in this property for 10 years and I have never seen anything like it.”