Sidmouth's 'fish wall' revamp goes swimmingly

Sidmouth's 'fish wall' mural has been given a revamp – with a shoal of colourful new creations swimming across its surface.

As with the original project 10 years ago, local children were invited to help create the mural at The Ham. Back then, this was a day-long community event, with children coming along to decorate the shapes of fishes and other marine creatures, before they were fired and attached to the wall.

Louise Cole of Sidmouth Coastal Community Hub said: "Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, it wasn't possible to invite a hands-on activity until now.

"In order to include as many as possible we asked Sidmouth C of E Primary to create new designs in class – they did this brilliantly and created fantastic vibrant new designs, some of which are quite complex.

"We invited the community to help us to realise their designs on the fish once we had grouted them and painted them white ready for the new designs."

Great response from the local community

Part of this work took place at the Climate Conversation event on July 18, and another session was held on Sunday, July 25.

Louise said: "We have been so pleased by the community response to help out, from all generations.

"It is still a work in progress with a few more fish left to paint, which will be painted this week, and then we will repaint the blue waves and the white border and also take the mural around into the new Coral reef community garden.

"We have had so many comments about how much people love the fish wall.

"It was hard to make the decision to paint over the original designs, and we know that the children who painted them – some of whom are now in their 20s – may feel a pang of loss for their designs.

"But we hope that this provides a long new lease of life and inspires people to get creative, and we hope it gives as much joy again to everyone in the community and visitors to Sidmouth."