Shire Hall will soon be covered in four metre and seven metre high shrouds covered in characters that represent the story of Monmouth town.

The hoarding that surrounds the building will also show life size people looking up at the shroud as part of the Shire Hall projects efforts to attract visitors to the top half of town.

The hoarding and the shroud will be erected before the end of 2008, once the scaffolding is complete.

Debbie McCarty of Monmouth's One Stop Shop is part of the Shire Hall project team.  She explained:

"We recognised that the scaffolding on the building will not show the building in the best light so we decided to ask people in the town for ideas on how we could help the building to keep attracting people.

"We want to help the retailers in Monmouth by keeping visitor numbers high.

"A designer from local practice Platform One approached us with a wonderful idea for a shroud that not only shows characters from the history of our town, but he also suggested that we get the community and visitors involved by making it a competition. To read more about this story, see The Monmouthshire Beacon issue dated November 19th