Shaun the Sheep sculptures raise £1m in auction

A trail of 50 Shaun the Sheep sculptures were put on display in London and used in a trail

An auction of 120 Shaun the Sheep sculptures in Bristol has raised over £1m for children's charities.

The sculptures were individually painted in a range of colourful designs and were used in two trails over spring and summer in Bristol and London.

Fetching the highest bid of £28,000 was a design called Globetrotter in what was an "intense bidding war".

Other popular designs were Sparkles the Unicorn, Starstruck which sold for £25,000 and £24,000 respectively.

'Sky, rockets and constellations'

Globetrotter's new owner, businessman Col Needham, said: "The moment when it crossed £1m, the atmosphere in the room was amazing."

Col Needham (r) with his wife, Karen (l) and the designer, Sarah Matthews with Globetrotter

Globetrotter was designed by Aardman designer, Sarah Matthews and was displayed on Tower Bridge, London.

"It has a lovely hand-drawn map of the world and famous landmarks and it connects to the sky with rockets and constellations on the very top of Shaun's head," Mr Needham added.

A total of 120 sculptures were sold off

The total raised was £1,087,900 and money raised for 70 sculptures from the Bristol trail will go towards The Grand Appeal.

The money will be used to build more family accommodation at Bristol Children's Hospital and St Michael's neonatal intensive care unit.

The Globetrotter design sold for £28,000 during Thursday's auction

Money raised from the 50 London sculptures will go towards the Wallace and Gromit's Children's Charity.

Two years ago, a similar trail held in Bristol saw the character Gromit, from Aardman's Wallace and Gromit films raise a total of £2.3m for The Grand Appeal.