A RIVER of poppies are currently being displayed at St Saviours Church in Brockenhurst to mark Remembrance Day.

Volunteers spent hundreds of hours knitting and crocheting 1,500 poppies this year to add to the 3,000 created last year during lockdown.

The cascading river of poppies leads out of the east window of the church to the lawn.

An emotional mark of respect to our fallen soldiers, the unique poppy display is the brainchild of Revered Simon Newham who first came up with the idea during lockdown.

Read more: Remembrance Sunday parades and services to return after a year's absence

Last year 3,000 poppies were created by volunteers to form a field of flowers with a rainbow in the centre, a nod to the NHS.

Taking things up a level this year, the display flows from the window with thousands of poppies stuck into the ground with pipes.

Church administrator and organiser Lesley Munt said: “It’s been really nice, we’ve had some of our elderly members who come to our lunch club knit them, members of the WI have done them and individuals in the village - it’s brought lots of people together.

“At Christmas last year, the vicar got us knitting lots of little white angels to put on the Christmas tree and they were taken off on Christmas morning and taken to people who were on their own for Christmas.

“He’s full of lovely ideas is our Simon - but he doesn’t knit or crochet.”

Read more: Stunning Remembrance Day postbox toppers appear in Dorset village

This year marks the centenary anniversary of the Royal British Legion’s annual poppy appeal.

The appeal was inspired by the poem of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae who wrote the now famous, In Flanders Fields, after losing a friend in Ypres and seeing popping growing in battle-scarred fields.

Lesley said: “It’s drawn a lot of attention, especially with people just walking by who will come and sit and quietly contemplate.

“People are definitely impressed with it and it means a lot to them.”

It takes an evening to knit around two or three poppies and all of the materials have been self-funded by the volunteers.

Knitters are able to make around two or three poppies per evening, and preparing them for planting and weather-proofing takes around the same amount of time and is done by another group.

Lesley said: “A lot of time goes into it and we will put them away carefully this year and I suspect they will come out again even bigger and better next year.”