Local children design Coast & Country Cottages 2021 calendar

Each year, we at Coast & Country Cottages produce a calendar to give to our holiday home owners and to businesses we work with in the local community. This year, we decided to do things a little differently. We invited local children to get creative and help us design the pages of the calendar – at the same time giving them the chance to win prizes for themselves and their school!

Children from 12 primary schools across the South Hams were invited to participate, with each school receiving a designated month to produce entries for. Judged by a panel consisting of local artists Paul Barclay and Tor Allen, along with Coast & Country Cottages Marketing Manager Emily Mercer, the winning design from each school features in the calendar, which will be distributed to our property owners and local businesses in the coming months.

Each school that took part received £100 worth of National book tokens, whilst each winning child also received a prize bundle worth £30, including treats from Cranch’s Sweetshop, a bobble hat from Barefoot Boy in Salcombe and National Book Tokens.

With over 400 entries, the standard of artwork was exceptional, inspired not only by the seasons, but also by the environment, local landmarks and even current affairs including the Black Lives Matter campaign. Modbury based artist Tor Allen said…

I was thrilled to be asked to judge these competition entries. The children have put so much effort and creativity into their designs, it was such fun to see them all! It has been very difficult to decide on the winners as there were so many lovely pictures. A big ‘well done’ to all the children who took part for their wonderful creativity and hard work.

Paul Barclay, Dartmouth based artist and owner of ‘Paul Barclay Designs and Retail’, added…

The quality of the entries was very impressive – there are clearly some superb up and coming young artists in the area. A really great input from the all the children – well done!

Emily Mercer, Coast & Country Cottages Marketing Manager said…

Not only did we aim to inspire young artists to think about our beautiful area – we also wanted to help the community we live in.

Our team includes many parents of children at local schools, and we are very aware there have been minimal fundraising opportunities this year for these institutions due to the pandemic. We felt by running this competition it would be a good way of helping schools in the community to broaden their libraries, as well as providing children with a fun project!

Coast & Country Cottages 2021 calendar winners

Take a sneak peak below at the fantastic winning drawings used in the Coast & Country Cottages 2021 calendar. We hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we have!

January

Aniella Willis, aged 9, Salcombe Church of England Primary School

February

Dominic Richmond-Pope, aged 5, Dartmouth Academy

March

Lilly Burrows, aged 6, St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Primary School, Dartmouth

April

Laila Morris, aged 9, Charleton Church of England Academy

May

Molly Elliott, aged 9, Kingsbridge Community Primary School

June

Maya Francis, aged 9, West Alvington Church of England Academy

July

Phoebe Tucker, aged 8, East Allington Primary School

August

Sam Parr Ferris, aged 9, Blackawton Primary School

September

Heidi Warner, aged 6, Stoke Flemming Primary School

October

Dorothy Hepburn, aged 5, Malborough with South Huish Church of England Primary School

November

Jake Seaton-Taylor, aged 10, Stokenham Area Primary School

December

Alice Carrelli, aged 6, All Saints’ Thurlestone Church of England Academy

We are delighted to announce that Coast & Country Cottages recently received a Covid-19 Heroes Award by Devon and Cornwall Police, in recognition of accommodating key workers free of charge during the initial lockdown. To find out more, and to discover the latest businesses news, click here to visit our blog. Alternatively, to discover more about Coast & Country Cottages, click here to visit our ‘About Us‘ page.