Mab Lane Community Woodland

More new pictures on the photo blog from member of the public Peter Marsden, who also reports that there are plenty of wagtails and wood pigeons on site taking a look at the new woodland for themselves.

Latest photos thanks to Peter Marsden who says: “Can’t wait to see every thing in bloom, you are doing a fantastic job, many thanks.”

See all ten new pics from Peter at the Mab Lane photo blog.

Send in your own to mablanephotos@merseyforest.org.uk.

The news sign-up form has been revamped here. It only takes a second, so if you’d like to be kept up to date on Mab Lane Community Woodland news and events, give it a whirl.

As you can see from these photos, the crafting of the sculptures that have been planned with local schools (see previous posts) is well underway, as is the creation of the woodland itself.

You can also view these photos as an album here. Thanks to local resident Tony Beyga for several of the photos.

A community tree planting event is also being planned, details will be posted here as soon as they’re confirmed.

These are the next stage of designs that will be presented to the schools working to create sculptures for the new woodland (see previous posts)…

The back field (a.k.a. the backy) will be completed in early Feb 2010 with exception to Mab Lane Boundary which is dependant on United Utilities works.

Work at Mab Lane playing field will resume second week in January. Drainage will be completed by end of January and this will be followed by tree planting and metalwork in February, prior to earth sculpting, aquatic planting, path works and grass seeding in March.

There will be a further opportunity to help plant up parts of the new woodland, with both community and schools events being set up – details will be posted on this site.

Children at 3 local schools have been busy completing designs for sculptures, some of which will form what is hoped to be three real life timber sculptures to be located within the new community woodland. Pupils from a mix of years at St Alberts RC Primary, St Brigids Catholic Primary and Mab Lane Community Primary School participated in three design workshops with staff from The Mersey Forest Team and the artist, John Merrill, who will eventually create the pieces of sculpture.

The children were shown some pictures of other well established community woodlands in The Mersey Forest area and features which will be incorporated into the new woodland with some examples of inspiring sculpture. Using an environmental theme, the children first sketched their ideas, once sketches were completed, the children modelled their ideas in 3D using clay and photographs were taken of the models to record the children’s ideas to lead to the next phase of design.

John Merrill the artist was pleased at the brilliant and varied designs of the children (see photos in slideshow above or as an album here),over Xmas the sculptures have been assessed for their good design, function and feasibility of construction and in early January he will return to each school to discuss the ideas with the children.

It is hoped the designs will lead to three final pieces being created for the woodlands – with locations yet to be determined.

Later in spring the new sculptures will be officially located on site hopefully in the presence of individuals of the schools involved.

St.Albert’s, Mab Lane, and St.Brigid’s primary schools will all be working with artist John Merrill at the start of December, with the children helping to plan three sculptures for the new woodland.

The final pieces will then be created in the New Year.

Click on the image to whet your appetite with some of John’s previous work…