AN 'overwhelming' community spirit has enabled a Bromsgrove church to produce a stunning mural to mark this year's Remembrance festivities.

For the second year running, Bromsgrove Methodist Church, on Stratford Road, has used thousands of poppies to create a unique design.

More than 18,000 red poppies feature in the adornment, with white poppies added to read 'D-Day 75' marking 2019 being the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings - the key turning point of World War II.

Last year, the white poppies depicted the number 100 to represent the centenary anniversary of the end of World War I.

While most of the woollen poppies were knitted or crocheted by members of the church congregation, some had been donated from further afield.

Other residents of Bromsgrove and its surrounding areas chipped in, while packages arrived by post from cities such as Sheffield and Cardiff.

Church steward Brenda Whipp was one of the project's organisers and she said they had been blown away by the response.

Brenda told the Advertiser: "The community spirit that resulted from the project has been overwhelming.

"When a small band of people from the church took on the task, we aimed for 6,000 poppies to create a centre piece of five panels to hang on the outside wall facing the Stratford Road.

"We were concerned at the time that that figure was a bit ambitious and we would struggle.

"But when we constructed the framework to hold the poppies and began to attach them all, it was evident that the poppies were now flooding into the church from all over the place.

"Generous people with no church connections whatsoever wanted to be involved in honouring the victims of war, whether that be soldiers, or the various animals involved.

"There is a section in the central banner that contains purple poppies to represent the fallen animals as well as the white peace poppies.

"The whole project represents a lot of people getting involved with the making of the poppies, then hours of attaching them to netting and framework."