UP to 50,000 people are estimated to have visited the poignant 19,240 Shrouds of the Somme Project in Exeter that depicts all 19,240 allied soldiers who fell on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Organisers said they have been inundated with people from all over the UK, and beyond for the one-week exhibition.

 The project was opened in the city’s Northernhay Gardens on July 1, exactly 100 years since the whistle was blown to go ‘over the top’ in one of the bloodiest battles in British military history.

 Artist Rob Heard took three years to complete the project and hand-stitched every shroud, reading the name of each man aloud from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s list of the dead as he completed each figure.