TWO youngsters who were asked to write a poem to describe the newly refurbished Long Shop at the Outlet Village are to have their work displayed in the shopping mall.

Earlier this month, the Long Shop was opened as a new extension to the shopping centre following a 12-month makeover.

To help children learn about the history of the building, McArthur Glen, which owns the Outlet Village, ran a competition asking them to come up with a poem describing the historic building.

On Wednesday, the two winners were announced, with Evan Root, from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School and Tillyjayne Wraight, from Bishopstone Primary School picking up the honours.

“We liked the creativity and imagination that went into their designs,” said Nick Williams, the centre’s marketing manager.

“Tillyjaine put her poem within her art which looked fantastic and Evan wrote a line of poetry for each letter of the two words Long Shop which was clever.

“We invited them, and their classmates, for a presentation.”

The winners will now have their work displayed and every child who entered got a goody bag.

Nick said the competition was run to get the youngsters involved in learning about the history of the centre.

He said: “The Long Shop is something which is obviously important to the heritage of Swindon so when we opened it we felt it was very important to get young people involved.

“We ran a competition asking pupils to come up with a poem.

“For Bishopstone and St Mary’s the competition tied in with their curriculum for the term so it worked well for them.

“We had a lot of good entries but we felt these two were the best.”

The Long Shop has only been open for two weeks but has already proved popular with the customers, according to Nick, and is set to grow even more in the coming months as more stores move in.