South Devon National Landscape
Follaton House, Plymouth Road,
Totnes TQ9 5NE
Small Wonders are our one-off artworks in each of the project areas (hotspots) that are bringing colour and magic to the coastline. Each offers a new perspective on the coastline and an opportunity to learn about our species. Alongside our partners, we’ve commissioned artists to capture something special that we’re sure will inspire you.
We are aiming to produce 5 new small wonders each year of the project. Some are available for a short time over the Summer period, others for much longer. We’ll have seven incredible pieces available for you to enjoy this Summer and Autumn. Read on to find out more.
Partnering with the National Trust as part of their Wembury Stream Resilience Project, we’ve developed a trail of 8 large dragonfly sculptures created from marine-ply.
Sculpted by a local Devon artist, Annie Gould, at Laser + Grain, the dragonflies were then painted by community groups local to the Wembury area and installed throughout lower mill meadow.
There is also an interpretation board to inform visitors about water quality and the vital species in the area that are affected by it.
The trail was launched on a glorious sunny morning at the end of March, just in time for the Easter holidays. 60+ people packed into the Marine Centre and enjoyed the unveiling.
Attendees were impressed by the variety of ideas and inspiration that each group took, and many comments on the day celebrated how wonderful it was that such a diversity of groups were involved.
Do go down and see all eight of the wonderful sculptures.
There’s even an Explorer’s Challenge sheet for children – Dragonfly explorer trail at Wembury | National Trust.
You can read more about the project in our Life on the Edge Dragonfly Trail blog.
Huge thanks to Annie (website: laserandgrain.co.uk), the National Trust for leading and hosting this project and to their wonderful volunteers who helped with the practical work.
Location: Lower Mill Meadow, Wembury Beach
W3W: ///vans.struggle.equivocal
On a beautiful Spring day, members of the community around the Erme came together with poet, Alan Ramage, and the National Trust to enjoy a walk around this incredible landscape, looping from Kingston down to Wonwell Beach and back via the coast path.
That walk inspired some creative writing. Elements of everyone’s work was brought together to create the poetry that was then engraved on this new gate.
We hope the words will be signposts for walkers towards the natural wonders that surround them.
Huge thanks to the National Trust for hosting this beautiful gate.
Location: Scobbiscombe Farm, Nr Kingston
W3W: ///swatting.mash.hips
During the winter of 2026, artists Sara Hurley and Monica-Shanta worked with two groups to learn about some of our special species and produce artwork which was used to create this wonderful installation.
Paignton-based Girls Against Anxiety and a group of women from Brixham took part in three workshops where they explored drawing, silk painting, printing, sound making and conversation. They focused on pairs of insects which relied on each other to complete their lifecycles, reflecting on the relationships we build and interconnectedness of our own lives.
It was at a final tea party that everyone first saw the beautiful tablecloth, mugs, and tea towels that had been produced. Monica had incorporated everyone’s work into the final piece of art.
As part of the same project Sara had been working with participants, capturing their thoughts and reflections and recording a range of sounds. These were then also brought together and are an integral part of the final small wonder installation.
Audio COMING SOON
You can enjoy all of this work in all its glory at Paignton Library until the end of Sept 2026. Sara and Monica will be doing free creative workshops for 4–11-year-olds on these same themes, held at the library on Saturdays throughout the Summer, please do join them. More information can be found on our events page.
With thanks to Sara (website: sdstorytellers.co.uk/about), Monica (website: monica-shanta.net), Girls Against Anxiety, Helen Ambler (Brixham Community Builder), Paignton Library, The Projection Room and all the participants
Location: Paignton Library
W3W: ///sobs.forces.calculating
Walking around the South Devon coast at night, in the dark, isn’t for everyone, but there’s a lot you could be missing out on. An intrepid group of young people from Kingsbridge Community College went out on three consecutive April evenings with their cameras, tripods and a UV torch to see what they could find with Biofluorescence photography expert, David Atthowe.
In effort to see a diversity of species, the young people went to West Alvington Woods and Charlton Marsh as well as East Soar Farm.
The results are looking incredible! The students are currently processing their images, and so we can’t share them just yet, but we can’t wait to!
An exhibition of their work will be on show from early July, so do check back here for more information. In the meantime, here’s two beautiful examples of David’s work to enjoy.
Thanks to Kingsbridge College students, their tutor, Annie Bodmer, David Atthowe (website: revealnature.co.uk) and to East Soar Farm for hosting the exhibition (website: eastsoaroutdoorexperience.co.uk).
Location: Walkers Hut, East Soar Farm, Nr. Salcombe
W3W: ///joins.calculate.drum
In September 2025, Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust were renovating their visitor’s centre ready for opening in Spring 2026. In partnership with them, we asked mural artist, Zoe Curley to design and paint a huge mural on the inside walls of the centre that celebrating the wonderful, rare species that make Berry Head so special.
The mural was finished by the end of September, but with Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust going into liquation in October 2026, the future of the visitors’ centre and the mural were in doubt.
We’re pleased to say that SwisCo are now looking after Berry Head and there are hopes to open the visitors’ centre soon. Watch this space for further information.
Huge thanks to Zoe Curley (website: zoecurleymurals.com) and to the staff at Berry Head Nature Reserve.
Location: Berry Head Visitors’ Centre, Nr Brixham
W3W: ///movement.untrained.commended
Since Easter 2025, our Silver-studded Blue sculpture has been catching the eye of many people along the South West Coast Path and has been such a favourite, that we’ve kept it in place for another year.
Integral to the design, is a wooden kora that surrounds the metal sculpture. Created by Burn the Curtain artist Joe Hancock, the kora explores the lifecycle of the Silver-studded Blue butterfly, from its fascinating co-dependence with black ants to its final emergence as an iridescent adult (website- burnthecurtain.co.uk).
On a monitoring survey at the site in December 2025, people commented on the joy of being able to experience artwork out in natural spaces and how the piece inspired them to learn more about the invertebrates on their doorstep. People also commented on the beauty of the piece and how well it fit into its beautiful surrounding, ageing with the seasons to reflect the changing colours around it.
We’d like to thank Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust for loaning the lifecycle images, and to the National Trust for hosting this piece.
For more information about the Silver-studded Blue butterfly go to Butterfly Conservation (website: Butterfly -conservation.org/butterflies/silver-studded-blue).
Location: Pudcombe Cove, Nr. Coleton Fishacre.
W3W: ///cope.already.minivans
Our very first small wonder, commissioned back in 2024, it a magnificent and sweeping poem written by poet, Tom Stockley. The poem is a celebration of the wonderful insect life that inhabits the coast around Prawle Point.
You can enjoy the poem on our YouTube channel, and we’ve attached the words here so that you can revel in the detail.
Huge thanks to Tom (website: tomstockley.weebly.com/ts-idiot.html)
(or, The Rhyme of The Long Horned Mining Bee)
The Aquanaut emerges from the safety of his burrow
A sandstone refuge bored in peppered cliff-tops
A vessel of dirt and liminal space from which he dives
He tastes the air, rotates an amber face and readies his descent
He drops, drapes silky legs that linger on this lunar surface
of rock pool townships, muddied shores
as sea slaters scurry undisturbed, strange creatures of the deep
He skims the buried faces of the cliffs and crags
And hears the intertidal symphonies below
He knows that this was and will become again
A reef upon the land
The Aquanaut pulls back and climbs beyond the violet beach
Into honeyed sky that drips, he drops into the precious space
That sits between the sea and all he knows
The landscape is alive and it shows him where to go
So, he soars
Above coral reefs of wild carrot flower clusters
and everlasting pea its pink anemones shelter
viridescant beetles, drifting jellyfish of bright green fields
Slow worms slither eel-like in the soil, silver flecks reflecting
Golden dash of Yellowhammer, angel of the trees
Cetacean shadows cast by cormorants make shade
For crab-like spiders as they hunt the crickets
Between soil and the sea
The Aquanaut treads sky between the swimming butterflies
That flash and fight for pollen on this precious shore
He glides across the only atoll that he knows
This precious, threatened Eden seen only through the eyes of seasons
He dives through wrecks of farm machinery as silver wings gleam endlessly
Power lines fall overhead as shark-tooth Kestrel beaks declare
Their kingdom atop salted lichen rocks,
This pollinating nation of migrators making homes among the waves
A maritime matrix holding foliated bands of predator and prey
He pauses, pushed as far as he can go to where the flora doesn’t grow
Stares through compound eyes at bleach-dyed pasture, presses on to home
Returns at dusk to salted earth and songbird skies,
Atlantic forest from the depths of time, his home;
This reef beneath the sky.
