Children’s entertainer and artist Timmy Mallett wheeled into Chepstow Castle last week as part of a 4,000-mile bike ride around the coast of Britain.

The Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie chart-topper is a keen painter, and armed with brushes in his pannier is stopping off along the way to sketch local attractions on his daily 40-mile cycling stints.

Last week the 66-year-old entered Wales over the old Severn Bridge and made straight for the nation’s oldest stone castle, dating back to 1067, to sit down in the sun and hammer out another artwork.

And Tweeting a picture of his illustration, he said: “Watercolour pen and ink of visitors enjoying the sunshine at one of Wales’ finest castles.”

He posted a film of himself at the castle and seeing its giant 12th Century wooden door joked: “Take a look at your front door. Will it last over 800 years? The oldest door in Europe is in Chepstow Castle! It’s brilliant. I want one. Can I order from B&Q??!”

Still sporting his loud shirt and trademark glasses, Timmy started his odyssey celebrating the seaside glories of the nation from Paddington Station in mid-March, and is hoping to finish in July.

Famed for wielding his pink foam ’Mallett’s Mallet’ on numerous children’s TV shows in the 1980s, Timmy’s more at home breaking out his palette these days, with an online art gallery that sells his works.

But his exuberant enthusiasm is still there, exclaiming ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ as he gazes at the view.

“You have Constable and Turner, but so many more — a whole host of artists’ colonies all around the shores of Britain,” he told the Daily Mail enroute.

“So I am heading along the same path to see how much it all inspires me and doing my own paintings along the way.”

His love of art was inspired by his father Michael, and one of his brothers is a fine artist living in Cornwall.

The idea for his epic coastal tour came during lockdown, with Timmy revealing: “‘I thought to myself, “Hang on a second, we can’t go travelling overseas at the moment, so why not do what other artists did 200 years ago and travel here instead?”’

After visiting Chepstow, the veteran entertainer headed to Caldicot Castle and onto Newport to depict the Transporter Bridge, and is now cycling around the Wales coastline before heading up the east English coast and into Scotland.

See mallettspalette.co.uk and his Facebook and Twitter pages for more information.