Ripon knitters create life-sized tank to mark D-Day

The knitted tank is 24ft long, 9ft wide and 7ft high

A Ripon community group has knitted a life-sized tank to commemorate 80 years since D-Day.

Ripon Community Poppy Project said volunteers had been "knitting furiously" to make the display.

The creation, modelled after a Churchill AVRE tank, measures 24ft (7.3m) in length, 9ft (2.7m) in width and 7ft (2.1m) in height.

The tank, built at Ripon barracks, will be displayed at outdoor locations around the city from 30 April.

The project has been under way since last summer

Hazel Barker, who helped to knit the tank, told BBC Radio York: "We started in June last year and we had been knitting steadily away, until nearly Christmas, when we started knitting furiously."

She said it had taken "thousands" of balls of wool to make the tank, as well as around £2,500 worth of donated timber for the frame.

Stuart Martin, also from the Ripon Community Poppy Project, said the group had been allowed to use the Ripon barracks to build the structure.

"We'll be launching it on 30 April at the newly refurbished Ripon Inn and then on 10 May, it will go down to Tates Nursery," he said.

The tank display also marks the 75th anniversary of the Royal Engineers gaining the Freedom of the City of Ripon.