Extract from the
Millennium Mosaic
A village committee was set up in the winter of 1998,
which behaved very properly and democratically. It started by offering a seat to every village organization, and one or two extra to accommodate the unenfranchised. Meetings and enthusiastic discussion followed, resulting in a list of ten possible projects, ranging from the statue of a scarecrow to buying a piece of rainforest for long term preservation, or putting up street lighting along the village walk known as ‘the Spout’. Gradually opinion focussed on the provision of a commemorative mosaic, partly at least because Maggy Howarth, whose cobblestone mosaics are nationally known, lives and works in Wennington, two miles from Wray.
Various sites were canvassed and various subjects, but it did not take very long to decide that the ‘Flood Garden’, the site of the demolished houses on the river side of the street, was the best place for such a mosaic, and if that were the site then the flood itself was the best subject. Money was available: Lancaster City Council’s ‘Million for the Millennium’ Fund promised £5000, the European Regional Development Fund another £5000. Various other funds for rural initiatives and the village itself, notably through the Institute Committee, added more. A private donation of £500 was gratefully received. The Committee held coffee mornings. Maggy Howarth provided a design without charge, which was displayed in the Institute for the village to consider and comment on.
It was not a cheap choice. The steeply sloping Flood Garden, with its need for excavation, drainage, and retaining walls, was an appropriate but expensive site. The first plan had to be reduced, an estimate of £20,000 whittled down to £14,000. The representation was of the wind and storm spewing out a great tide of water. Some of the materials came from the Cobblestone Designs workshop - a significant part of their work is the identification of suitable beds of pebbles in riverbeds, seashores, quarries, and the getting permission to gather and bring them home. The Wray mosaic uses mainly black pebbles from a Cumbrian seashore, white pebbles from Wales, and carved insets made from green Elterwater slate. But the brown stones representing the main flood water were gathered by a village working party, appropriately enough from the bed of the Roeburn and Hindburn.
The stone-gathering was followed by a cobblestone workshop in the Institute, where volunteers were instructed in the choosing and setting of right-shaped stones. Then at an open day at Cobblestone Designs people could see the professional set-pieces made by Maggy Howarth herself and her three assistants. Enthusiasm ran very high, and the mosaic was set up over a weekend by changing bands of volunteers, most of whom, especially the schoolchildren, will never forget the precise position of their contribution. The construction work of semicircular walls and paving was done by Richard Harrision and the Kenyon brothers, local builders, who thirty years earlier had built bungalows for the Whittams and the Bastows after the flood.
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Extract from the Introduction
Extract from the Introduction (continued)
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