Penryn College student, Matilda Fuller, aged 15, has already started her interior design career by having a cushion she created featured in a St Austell Brewery pub.

Matilda won a competition run by the brewery and now her decorated cushion features as part of the refit of The Blue Anchor public house in St Austell, which re-opened in the summer.

Every year, St Austell Brewery commission the refurbishment of between 15 and 20 of their pubs, and GCSE textile students at Penryn College were given a brief to redesign the interior of The Blue Anchor.

Chris Knight of St Austell Brewery presented Matilda with an Interior Design Award for her sea life themed cushion, complete with laser engraved fish scales, appliqué, embroidery and block print.

Mr Knight said: "We were blown away with the quality of the students’ designs, especially as this was the first project of their GCSE course. Matilda's was definitely the pick of the entries but the attention to detail and eye for following the brief in all of them was amazing. We're looking forward to seeing the fruits of this year's competition."

Second place was awarded to Tiegan Pond with her Cornish legends display screen, providing the customers with local information leaflets in the hand-embellished individual pockets. Finally, Yzobelle Teaucher received a highly commended award for her piece of work which explored the theme of local honey bees with exquisite hand embroidery and appliqué.

Textiles teacher Lorraine Alonso said: "The girls were thrilled to be set a real, commercial challenge and learned a huge amount about the design process for business settings by working to St Austell’s brief."

The brewery will be setting a new interior design challenge for autumn 2017, taken from one of their current refurbishment projects.