The Mayor of Horwich has announced the joint winners of the "Design a Christmas Card" competition.
There were a total 48 entries from seven schools in the area, for which the brief was "Christmas in Horwich".
There was nothing to chose between the eventual joint winners so the mayor and mayoress picked one each – Isla-Jay Cheetham, a year four pupil from Chorley New Road Primary School, and Jonah Arstall who is in year five at St Mary’s Primary School both hit the brief with their creative designs.
Isla-Jay’s design depicts Rivington Pike on top of a Christmas pudding, with snowmen and the Winter Hill television mast overlooking Horwich.
Jonah’s Christmas card shows a steam locomotive pulling carriages full of presents into Horwich.
Both children will be presented with a certificate and invited to switch on the civic Christmas tree lights at the Crown Roundabout on Friday, December 2 at 6pm.
Town mayor, Cllr Steven Chadwick, said: “From the shortlist we have chosen two fantastic winners whose designs have been turned into Christmas cards by Craftprint and will now be sold to raise funds for my Mayoral charities and groups.
“Both designs absolutely fulfilled the design brief 'Christmas in Horwich'.
“Isla's design was incredibly clever using the geography of our area and the use of a Christmas pudding to make the Pike hill was fantastic.
“Jonah's design recognises Horwich's proud heritage as a historic railway town with a train arriving in to Horwich full of presents, again a very clever idea.
“It really is great to see that our young citizens are aware of our great railway history in Horwich of building steam locomotives and that Horwich was one of the major railway towns in this country.
“It is partly why we bid to be the home of Great British Railways earlier in the year."
He added: "Growing up in Horwich I always enjoyed the lights switch on and never thought I would one day switch them on myself, so it is great to be able to share that and gift that moment to two worthy winners.
“Thank you to all who entered, there were some fantastic designs and a special thankyou to Craftprint of Horwich, who not only provided the posters free of charge to advertise the competition, but have also donated 200 cards of each design and certificates free of charge to support this community initiative.
“It really is humbling to see the fantastic support from them and is a reminder that we should support our local businesses by shopping local as often as possible."
The Christmas cards will be available to buy from Horwich Town Council's office at Horwich Community Centre and from Mayor Chadwick himself. Further details to be released shortly.
The groups to benefit from the sales of the cards will be Rivington Heritage Trust, Anderton Centre, 1471 (Horwich) Squadron Air Training Corps, Horwich RMI Cricket Club and Eagley Band.
If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at lewis.finney@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on Twitter @lewisfinney18
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