COVID Commemoration Garden

About the Project

A Team formed within West Lancashire Borough Council have designed and are developing a sensory woodland situated at the Beacon Country Park to commemorate COVID-19.

The commemoration site will represent a positive place of thanks and reflection. This woodland will be filled with beautiful wildflowers and colourful artwork; a mosaic rainbow will be displayed on the wooden bench, and glass artwork will be created in wooden structures. As we wanted the woodland to be a place of reflection, we will allow members in the community to plant trees in memory of lost loved ones, when safe to do so. We will give out wooden hearts to inscribe onto and place into the hole the tree will be planted. We also came up with a time capsule idea where children from all schools/nurseries in West Lancashire have been invited to write messages or draw pictures of what COVID-19 has meant for them and their experience. These notes will be placed into a time capsule that will be buried at the site upon a small ceremony in July, which the participating establishments have been invited to.

Public Consultation

SHARES contacted schools in the borough and set the children with the task to design artwork that would then be shortlist, composed, and recreated on coloured glass and installed inside 4 wooden uprights within the garden. The artwork was created in response to the theme; 'positive things to come out of lockdown'.

5 schools sent in art submissions. From these submissions, we selected 20 children to attend the workshop with our Artist.

The designs produced by the 16 children who attended the workshop went out to public consultation where 4 of the 16 designs would be selected.

The results are in, and the winning submissions are:

Design 1

Design 2

Design 12

Design 13

Now these 4 winning designs have been selected – local artist, Sarah Jane Richards will produce and deliver 4 pieces of glass artwork, working with Phill Gregson to ensure design and fit in wooden uprights.

We would like to thank all the children who participated in this wonderful project and produced such beautiful, creative pieces of work.

In addition to the artwork, name suggestions submitted by West Lancashire Borough Council staff also went out to public consultation. Amongst all the brilliant suggestions, the winning name is:

'Garden of Reflection'

This project will be a wonderful space for the community to reflect and remember people lost, as well as praise our NHS and key workers. Filled with colour, nature, life, and community participation; it allows the community to commemorate together the impact of COVID-19 on West Lancashire. We are grateful for everyone who took part in this project and are looking forward to when it is opened to the public.