A Beautiful, Natural Space at the Heart of the Community
.png)
The Compass Circle
The idea behind the compass circle was born from wanting to create an artistic sculpture that would also provide an educational focal point for the meadow.
What We Did
Kelly has a wonderfully artistic eye and lead the creativity on this project. As the site is so exposed, we thought that creating a wind vane with compass markings would be a fitting way of celebrating the weather and the wildness of nature. The idea was to create a mowed space where people could sit and picnic right in among its flowering beauty, or lie back and gaze at the vast galaxy of stars in the night sky above...
How We Achieved It
We sourced a set of large old oak barrel rings knowing that they would age beautifully and provide the striking effect we envisaged. It was important that we used resourced materials which would complement the natural beauty of the meadow and blend with the environment. We sank large heavy posts into the ground, setting the circular orbs on top. We had the compass labels laser carved out of wood by local company Kar n' Dave before securing them to each post. Simon (friend and longtime supporter of the meadow) said he had a weather vane which was sitting unused which was the perfect size to take centrestage of our installation. He kindly donated it and helped us to mount it. We absolutely love the result and how during different seasons the sculpture stands proud - in summer when the meadow is high it almost floats across its surface, providing a striking silhouette against those fiery sunsets.
What Happened Next
Spring each year sees a beautiful purple carpet of crocus blooming in many communities across Great Britain thanks to planting to raise awareness of the Rotary fight against polio. Rotary has been working to eradicate polio from the world for more than 35 years. We reached out to the local St Columb Rotary Club who kindly donated us purple crocus corms. We dug a circular trench around the compass circle and hand-planted 4000 crocuses! We're proud to host this beautiful purple display each February, and it also serves as a sign that Spring is just around the corner.