Giant labyrinth to be created on Bodmin Moor to mark 60th anniversary of the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
The man behind the famous Man Engine, which celebrated the Cornish mining industry, is to build a giant labyrinth on Bodmin Moor.
Will Coleman is on a mission to create a permanent, living monument overlooking the beautiful Colliford Lake. It's been called Kerdroya, the Cornish labyrinth landscape.
Kerdroya is meant to be a piece of public art that will last for generations to come. It could still be there in 4,000 years.
Visitors will walk a single, meandering path through stretches of stonework celebrating the distinct hedging styles from all 12 Cornwall Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) sections.
The labyrinth is also a commitment to the environment - the hedges will play host to tens of thousands of species of insects plus 600 types of flowering plants.
It seems like a far cry from the massive Man Engine that marched through the county in 2016, drawing crowds of thousands in celebration of the region's mining heritage. But artist Will Coleman, who is behind both the mechanical puppet and the giant labyrinth, says they have a lot in common.
''Actually the man engine and Kerdroya are quite similar in my mind in that the Man Engine was a celebration of our great mining landscape and this is a celebration of the 60 years of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. How do you celebrate a landscape? Well you can't march through it with a 42 foot clanking steaming miner so how about something that celebrates our extraordinary Cornish hedges that bring so much ecological diversity?''
Cornwall AONB, Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Cornwall Council are all helping fund Kerdroya and now the public can contribute by buying a section of the hedge-wall with a personalised plaque.
The website where you can sponsor a yard of Kerdroya, will open on 2 March.
Work is due to start in April 2020 and could be completed as early as November.
READ MORE: