WEST Devon schoolchildren will soon be putting their own stamp on a multi-million pound landmark project, nearing completion in the Walkham Valley near Grenofen.

Four schools in the area — Tavistock, Whitchurch and Horrabridge primaries and Tavistock College — are taking part in a competition to design a picnic area at the wooded site at one end of the £2.1-million Gem Bridge. The area will use original granite blocks from Isembard Kingdom Brunel's viaduct which have been salvaged from the site.

Part of the Sustrans Route 27, the cycle route from Ilfracombe to Plymouth which also includes the Granite Way between Okehampton and Lydford, the bridge is now 'joined in the middle'.  Workers on the site can now stand on the bridge, which spans 200 metres, and capture a view which has not been seen since Brunel's bridge was dynamited in the 1960s, a victim of the Beeching Act.

The pupils will be visiting the site this week to gain ideas on how best to locate the blocks to create a picnic or resting area by the end of next month.

Cllr Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council cabinet member for highways and transportation, said: 'Thousands of people will visit Gem Bridge when it's complete and open to the public and I'm sure that local pupils will take great pride in having their design on show and used by everyone who travels on this spectacular cycle route.'

Cllr Debo Sellis, county councillor for Tavistock, said: 'This is an opportunity for students to cast their youthful spirit into local history. 

'Gem Bridge is part of our local heritage and future; a place where these students may one day take their grandchildren and say "I was part of this – I remember when I helped design this".'

The winning design will be approved by a judging panel of Devon County Council engineers, National Park rangers and members of the local community.

Two student representatives of each participating school will be invited to attend the opening ceremony of the bridge this summer.

Engineer Ben Naylor said the bridge had been a fantastic project with which to be involved: 'It's a unique project and that's what we feel we will come away with — unique in the sense that Brunel put a massive great bridge in there, and we are working in a site that's full of that debris.'

In the 19th century, the Walkham Valley at Grenofen was not the rural idyll it is now — it was an industrial setting for copper and arsenic mining and there are many shafts and building remains in the area.

'There is a real sense of history here — I walked up to check the flood bund the other day,' added Mr Naylor. 'The leat alongside is full at the moment and you can imagine the noise of the mine wheels.

'It's been an amazing project to work on.  We have had odd problems, but  the best thing for me is when people come down and see it for the first time — particularly if they were opposed to it — so many people have gone away so enthused, which is great.'