A creative competition for children in Epsom and Ewell has been launched to coincide with the 400-year anniversary of Epsom Salts being discovered.

Organisers of MGSO4 Epsom and Ewell Arts Festival (named after magnesium sulphate – commonly found as Epsom Salts), was inspired by “The Lost Words”, a book that pairs illustrations of words about nature with short acrostic poems.

Children will be asked to submit their own illustration, poem, or both, for one of eight chosen words.

Bourne Hall Museum curator Jeremy Harte has selected these “lost words” from the seventeenth century, at the height of Epsom’s popularity as a spa town and the discovery of the salts.

The words are as follows.

• Beeskep: a hive or home for bees made from straw rope twisted and coiled into a dome

• Flittermouse: the Surrey dialect word for bat

• Fuzzchat: a small heathland bird; also the nickname for a person born on Epsom Common

• Haycock: a small pile of hay raised after mowing to dry out before stacking

• Hedgepig: the Surrey dialect word for hedgehog

• Kissing-gate: a swing gate moving between two arms of a curved fence

• Riphook: a tool with a curved blade for cutting grass, similar to a sickle

• Plashing: the weaving of slashed tree branches between upright branches to create a hedge

Winners will receive a copy of the Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, as well as having their own work published in a book and displayed at the festival.

Entries can be given in at Bourne Hall Museum or Epsom Library, with the closing date being June 4.