Calstock artist in residence Gill Mannings Cox is transforming a bus shelter in a Tamar Valley parish.

The village of Landulph has a sturdy, traditional shelter but no longer a bus to service it.

The parish council came up with the idea of turning the disused space into a community amenity, and local artists were invited to put forward their designs. Gill’s reflected the landscape, activities and wildlife around Landulph through the seasons, and she was commissioned to work her magic on the shelter.

She has spent the summer in Calstock honing her sketches for the artwork. Gill explained: “Landulph has deep traditional connections with farming, orchards and river trade.

“I’d have loved to show the procession of old schooners and barges and the banks of the Tamar solid with pink cherry-blossom, but had to find a way to make small references to all the rich history in the small confines of the bus shelter.

“The back interior wall looks through trees, mainly local oaks, across a sunny flower meadow to the river running from left to right across the wall.

“Half-hidden in the foliage and grass are local animals and birds and on the river a selection of the boats familiar to this stretch of the Tamar: yachts, classics, pilot gigs and maybe even a tourist cruise on its way upstream to Calstock.

“The left wall represents farming, with a tractor on bare winter fields, and on the right are two cider-makers with barrels, a reference to the Community Orchard and Wild Space recently established and now flourishing in Landulph.”

Most importantly she will depict the people who lived there; children playing in the meadow, workers in the fields, dog walkers, elderly people looking at the views, a couple of sailors on boats, she adds.

A wet summer and a list of private commissions put pay to the scheduled start for painting of 2024, moving it to this summer. Gill said: “Even then, I was wary of applying paint to walls that still felt a tad damp until quite recently.”

The first step was two coats of stabiliser; the surface looked firm enough. A measured grid was used to transfer the paper design to the walls. Most recently she has added the background of a summer sky on the back wall and a chilly, wintry one on the left side.

At floor level, the background is dark green representing deep woodland floor and won’t show scuff marks, she says, a practical touch among the artistry. In between, a layer of bright green, background for the flower meadow, and a line of a pale blue-grey for the river.

“All of these background colours are the canvas on which I’ll paint the details: the birds, animals, flowers and boats,” she added.

Progress is steady, although dependent on weather. Gill said: “September is looking comparatively clear, and if the weather holds, I foresee a topping-off ceremony in not too many weeks from now.”