Visitors to Westmead Open Space will already be familiar with the beautiful wooden owl sculpture that greets visitors accessing our land from Westmead Open Space car park. They might have also been curious about various new holes with cones in and wood chip pathways appearing through a copse of trees in the last few weeks. Yesterday, the mystery started to be unveiled as some of our new wonderful wooden sculptures arrived on site.
There will be 11 new sculptures set in place during the next week or so. The sculptures are the result of a competition we ran in 2019 for local children to design wooden sculptures to be realised into a Tree Sculpture Trail. There was a winner from each of the local Primary schools, including St Nicholas school.
The children’s designs have been turned into a set of stunning sculptures by the very talented Ollie Adams, a member of the Gardens Team at the Lackham Campus, Wiltshire College and University Centre. Ollie is the sculptor who created the original owl. You will soon be able to see all the sculptures in their full glory in their new home at Westmead Open Space. We were hoping to have the trail late spring last year, but the work was put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are delighted to be able to progress with the project now.
Work will be continuing to fully set up the trail including benches, signage, a map and information about the sculptor and competition winning entries. We will be providing further updates, including news about the official trail opening on our Westmead Hub website in the latest news section. We hope the trail will become a favourite spot for visitors – a place where children can explore and enjoy being surrounded by woodland creatures and nature.
