A poignant tribute to the fallen of the First World War has transformed a beach in the county as part of the commemorations marking 100 years since the guns fell silent.

Giant images of heroes from the Great War have been carved into the sand of 32 beaches across the nation in an event orchestrated by Hollywood director Danny Boyle marking the centenary of the Armistice.

People in the county will be able to see an image of war poet Lieutenant Wilfred Owen, who was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery in 1918, on Sunny Sands beach in Folkestone.

The public will be asked to join in by creating silhouettes of people in the sand and each of the beaches taking part in the project will commemorate a different war casualty.

Speaking on Sunny Sands beach in Folkestone this morning, Mr Boyle told the Andrew Marr Show: "Folkestone was the artery through which millions of service personnel left.

"We're here to commemorate him [Lt Wilfred Owen] and his work

"The portrait has been created within the tide so as the tide returns, which it's beginning to do now, it will take his portrait of him."

Lt Owen was born in Oswestry on the Welsh borders in 1893 and raised in Birkenhead and Shrewsbury.

In September 1915, Owen enlisted in the British Army and by 1917, left for the Western Front across the channel from the Folkestone Harbour Arm station, the day after staying in Folkestone’s Metropole Hotel.

He stood for 50 hours in a flooded dugout in No Man’s Land at Serre, where he developed shell-shock and returned to Britain for treatment.

Owen left Folkestone once again, for what would be the final time, on August 31 1918, to return to his battalion on the Western Front after more than a year away.

He went on to take part in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line at Joncourt in October 1918, seizing a German machine gun, for which he was awarded the Military Cross in recognition of his courage and leadership.

Tragically, Wilfred Owen was killed in the last week of the war, during the battle to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors on November 4, 1918.

At the time of his death, he was virtually unknown, with only four of his poems published during his lifetime.

His poetry was characterised by its images of the horrors of trench and gas warfare.