Winnall Moor

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The entrance to Winnall Moor was the first project I completed for The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust working closely with Martin de Retuerto, who manages the site. I began the work during the spring of 2009 making a monumental carved wooden entrance archway into Winnall Moors. It was fitted with great precision by Jess Pain and Robin who do all the development work on the site the same summer. The whole project is lottery funded.
The timber for the archway was milled from a massive wind-blown oak that fell at another WLT reserve, Blashford lakes near Ringwood. Locally sourced it has clocked up a very small carbon footprint during its delivery and transformation into the new entrance to WM. The images on both sides of the columns that support the lintel were initially derived from patterns found on shards of medieval tiles found on the site of St Gertrudes chapel on the moor. Later I sourced imagery from tiles seen in Winchester cathedral and designed some specially to reflect flora and fauna within the reserve. Always looking ‘for the other side of the coin‘, I used the other side of the entrance to make a new entrance to Winchester that would be visible to people as they left!
White & Etherington’s timber mill in Alresford cut all the beams for me and I did all the carving work in one of their sheds during the spring. The letters that spell out Winnall Moor and Winchester were designed from medieval script and cut out of stainless steel sheet at my workshop. They were then countersunk into the top main beam using chemical fixings.