INTERNATIONALLY-known "funerary artist" Carol Aston, of Bishop's Castle, produced a surprising work for a church exhibition - her own coffin.

The coffin, delicately painted in green, bedecked in flowers and inscribed with the poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, featured in a Sacred Space exhibition in Leominster's Priory Church.

"I began painting my coffin about six years ago and on it I have written one of my favourite poems by John Keats, surrounded by some of my best-loved flowers and foliage," she said.

"However, I do like to add to it as time passes. That's why it's unvarnished and not finished."

Carol has taken the coffin to art and funerary exhibitions through out Europe and it has acquired a few blemishes and scratches over the years.

"I like to exhibit it as part of my mission to break down our current and enduring cultural taboos which surround our mortality."

Carol avoids the more commercial path, preferring to spend her time living and working in the tranquillity of the Welsh Marches, concentrating on painting coffins for her Purple Funeral Company .

She has been nominated three times for the prestigious Turner Prize for Art and her current commissions include two coffins for permanent display at Russia's National Museum of Death in Novosbirisk, Siberia.

* THE Bishop of Ludlow, The Right Rev Michael Hooper, returned to his home patch where he was previously rector to launch the Hereford Arts Sacred Space exhibition at Leominster Priory.

"My own efforts at painting did not prevent me from appreciating and enjoying art of all kinds. For centuries, churches have always been places of creativity in many forms. Where better to show contemporary works of art and craft?"