September 11 Memorial Garden, London

   On the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America, Princess Anne opened a memorial garden here dedicated to the victims. Situated in line with the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square and built above a resin-encased girder recovered from the north tower of the World Trade Center, it is believed to be the first permanent memorial of the event outside the United States.
   Relatives of the 63 British victims felt strongly that a garden was the most-suitable memorial – a tranquil place to come and remember, especially as the majority of survivors don’t have a grave to visit. Furthermore, it symbolizes new life, and the opportunity to begin to look forward again.
   The designer of the memorial, architect Aileen Shackell of London-based Land Use Consultants, says the garden respects the symmetry of Grosvenor Square’s historic layout and forms a new and intimate space for quiet reflection.
   “The design is simple and dignified,” she says. “It is based on the form of an oval, perhaps the most natural of all geometric shapes, so it will feel calm and tranquil for visitors.”
   Fittingly, the materials chosen are of the highest quality with longevity a key criterion in the specification process. Two British sandstones (Crossland Hill and Woodhead), green oak, bronze and steel have been brought together to achieve an intended lifespan of 600 years.
   Floral planting, too, has been chosen with care and imagination and in consultation with the bereaved families. It includes lily of the valley, representing hope; rosemary, for remembrance; and lavender, for its calming properties.
   White roses, included because these were in the posy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at the first memorial service held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 2001, were planted here in April by Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport in the United Kingdom, and William Farish, US Ambassador to the UK.
   Set out informally in two beds, the shrubs and herbaceous plants will provide scent and colour throughout the year, but with a special focus on mid-September to mark the anniversary. A yew hedge and steel railings enclose the whole garden to provide a degree of seclusion for visitors.
   An English oak pergola frames the rear half of the elliptical garden, providing a shady seating area for visitors. At its centre is an oak pavilion, designed in the form of a small classical temple. The inscription “Grief is the price we pay for love” is cut into the oak, while the front elevation below holds three bronze plaques bearing the names of those from the UK, the UK Overseas Territories and dual nationalities who lost their lives.
   All 20 of the pergola’s columns, and the pavilion itself, are supported by Crossland Hill sandstone bases, supplied and worked by Johnsons Wellfield Quarries of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
   Beneath the pergola, extending into a central area and up to the entrance gates, is 1400 ft² of 1/2”-thick Woodhead paving with a sawn finish in widths of 17” and in random lengths of between 17” and 35”. Both sandstones are warm in colour and are highly durable.
   Some 5,000 cobbles of 4”-square Woodhead, laid on 2” bedding, make up both a dished channel of edging around the paving area and a mowing trim on either side of a 15”-high stone railing plinth (also cut from Woodhead).
   In addition, the cobbles form a detail around a large centrepiece stone plaque set in the paving.
   Aileen Shackell says there was never any debate about whether or not to use natural stone. “The Government wanted to create something really beautiful and high-quality for the bereaved UK families,” she says. “In meetings, we discussed how this memorial should still be standing in 600 years time, and when you talk of such longevity there is only one choice: natural stone.
   “The relatively high initial cost of the scheme could then be shown to be supplying best value for money over a long period. So the only debate was about which stone to use.” 
   Yorkstone, the collective terms for the hard sandstones quarried in the north of England, won the specification because of its strength. The two stones chosen are also warm in color.
   Christian Marshall Ltd, the stone contractor from Rudgwick, West Sussex, was on site for three months. It was not a straightforward installation contract, because there is a domed effect across the centre of the paved area.
   “There was a distinct ‘hump,’” says Christian Marshall, the company’s director. “This took some sorting out. The paving slabs were supplied as flat stone, which we had to lay to a complicated set of falls in the level. Effectively, we were laying stone against our natural principles because it wasn’t flat. Then we had to grind the lips off the paving to form the domed effect. It was quite a task and explains the three-month timescale for what is really quite a small area of paving.”
   At the center of the paving is a sandstone paving plaque dedicated to all the victims of Sept. 11. Richard Kindersley, one of Britain’s foremost lettercutters, designed both this plaque and the three-part bronzes on the pavilion.
   The Yorkstone plaque is cut from 3” -thick Crossland Hill sandstone. It is elliptical – , 56” long and 70” wide – and slightly domed. There were initially some concerns from the quarry that such a large piece might not be available, but these proved unfounded.
   The inscription, cut in a contemporary freehand, is taken from the poem For Katrina’s Sun-Dial by the American poet Henry Jackson Van Dyke. It reads:
   Time is
   Too slow for those who wait
   Ttoo swift for those who fear
   Ttoo long for those who grieve
   Too short for those who rejoice
   But for those who love
   Time is not.
   For Kindersley, the stone element of his part of the job went smoothly once a sufficiently large piece of Crossland Hill was found.
   Everyone involved in the project describes the contract period as having been extremely tight. The UK Government approved the memorial – at a cost of £500,000 (approx. US$753,500) – in August 2002, and work needed to be completed by June 2003 to allow for planting. This was a project that needed to be completed on time.
   Delivery was critical. What is more, because the site is so small, there was no space for all the contractors to be working at the same time. Supplies and contractors had to appear when the work schedule permitted it. No element could slip.
   These issues, and the high profile nature of the project, brought considerable pressures to all those involved. Architect Aileen Shackell felt it, too.
   “Everyone felt strange to be working on a project that was so high-profile and would be so stared at,” she says. “It certainly concentrated the mind. But, it was a good project to work on.
   “The families are the real clients, and it means a lot to the them.”
   Claire Santry is a UK-based free-lance journalist specializing in architecture and natural stone who writes for several international publications.

This article first appeared in the November 2003 print edition of Stone Business. ©2003 Western Business Media Inc.