A WEST Somerset artist has been working to create an extraordinary piece of commemorative art to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Created by Watchet’s Rob Heard, the enormous scale of the Shrouds of the Somme brings a genuine sense of the true cost of the conflict, while remembering those who gave their all as individuals.

Mr Heard is hand stitching and binding calico shrouds for 72,396 figures representing Commonwealth servicemen killed at the Somme who have no known grave, many of whose bodies were never recovered and whose names are engraved on the Thiepval Memorial.

Each figure is a human form, individually shaped, shrouded and made to a name.

They will be laid out, shoulder to shoulder, in hundreds of rows to mark the Centenary of Armistice Day at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from November 8 to18, filling an area of more than 4,000sqm.

Entry will be free to the public and in excess of 200,000 visitors are expected over 11 days.

Rob has spent hours each day binding figures into the shrouds.

“It is important that each figure, each man has his moment in time, and that one person does this, it happens to be me, but it should be one person,” he said.

Dan Snow, BBC history television presenter, said: “This is something I never thought I would see. It is the most powerful depiction of the losses in the First World War that I have ever come across.

“Rob’s done something so important here, he’s found such an unusual way to demonstrate the true human cost of the First World War, to remind us that the casualty lists that we see, they’re not just names and numbers, they’re individual human beings whose lives were destroyed by the fighting.”

Profits from the project will be donated to SSAFA The Armed Forces Charity: which has provided practical, emotional and financial support to servicemen, veterans and their families in times of need for 130 years; and the Commonwealth War Graves Foundation.