As the UK moves out of lockdown in 2021, The Market Place has been challenged to create a Covid-proof town trail for Caterham Valley in Surrey.

To achieve this, we have commisioned a professional artist to transform the town's shop windows with vibrant artworks to form a woodland nature trail with a difference.

Working with the Caterham Business Improvement District (Caterham BID – known as Caterham Valley For You), the pictorial trail tells the story of a group of local woodland friends setting off for a picnic, and follows their adventures along the way.

Launching on Saturday June 26, the free family fun trail encourages youngsters to dress up as their favourite woodland animals and take along cuddly toys to join in the fun with characters such as Owlbert the owl, Brian the badger, Bella the bee and Cuddles the hedgehog.

There will be prizes for the best costumes, with selfie spots along the route to capture pictures around the town, and also for the winners of a quiz at the end of the trail.

Many of the town’s businesses have got involved in the project by offering up their windows to be painted by a professional artist with scenes featuring the woodland friends, whilst others are joining in with themed displays for Colour Caterham.

As well as being a lot of fun for the kids, we wanted to create something that was eye-catching and appealing to adults to, whether participating in the trail or not.

Caterham Valley’s free Colour Caterham woodland story trail runs from Saturday June 26 through to the end of July, 2021. You can read more about it on the Caterham Valley For You website..