THE best Britain has to offer will be exhibited in the form of sand sculptures at a top Weymouth visitor attraction.

Sandworld, based at Lodmoor Country Park, will launch its latest sand showcase tomorrow (Saturday) when it officially opens its Best of Britain sand sculpture festival to the public.

A team of 14 expert sand sculptors have worked for the past six weeks to create the new sand statues. There is a wide range of British icons set in sand, encompassing genres such as sport, history, literary art and film and television, ranging from the Royal Family and Charles Darwin, to Harry Potter and Lewis Hamilton with his championship winning car.

There is also a section dedicated to music, with a sculpture of boy band One Direction alongside music legends The Beatles and David Bowie.

Mark Anderson, co-founder and director of Sandworld in Weymouth, said he was looking forward to the new summer season and was feeling positive ahead of the launch of the new exhibition.

He said: “The Best of Britain is such a rich subject matter to do, there’s a lot you can do from it and we needed it to be done really well and I think we have.

“We are always optimistic before we open, we are going from strength to strength and hopefully this will be our best year yet.

“We are the best sand sculpture exhibition in the country, and probably one of the best in the world based on the artists we have working here. They love working here with the sand as it’s really fine and compacts well.”

Following the launch on Saturday, there will also be further sculptures unveiled as the season progresses, with the sand sculptors working as members of the public walk around the exhibition.

The One Direction sculpture does still include Zayn Malik, who officially quit the band on Wednesday, as it was completed before the news broke and Mr Anderson said: "We'll keep Zayn, but with the way it's sculpted if you stand at one angle you can't see him but at another angle you can.

"It's quite a good coincidence really, and we have put markers where people can take the best selfies from as well, which I'm sure there will be a lot of."