Poetic Benches For Peak District

Poetry and the outdoors have always sort of gone together - 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' and all that sort of thing - and now, in the Peak District, the relationship is being formalised with poems being carved into commemorative benches...

The 50 new wooden benches mark the 50th anniversary of the Peak District Ranger Service and each one will come complete with a four line poem. The poems were written by members of the public and apparently focus on the life and landscape of the area.

One budding Wordsworth, was Ttwelve-year-old Rhiannon Jones, a pupil at Chapel-en-le-Frith High School, who was delighted her poem was among the 50 chosen from 500 entries to adorn a bench at Roych Clough between Hayfield and Chinley.

Her poem, written when she was still at Chinley Primary School, goes:

"Every inch I climb
Up the old oak tree
Makes me realise
How much nature means to me."

After seeing the bench, Rhiannon said: "The poetry bench is in a nice place, near to the river with good views. I got my inspiration from climbing trees in the Peak District."

The benches should all be installed by the end of the year, each with a poem and a plaque identifying the author.

The Ranger Service was launched in 1954 at the Nag's Head in Edale, when Tom Tomlinson was appointed the first full-time ranger (then called warden) in the country. It now has 200 highly trained full- and part-time staff and many more volunteers, who lead guided walks, carry out conservation work and widen understanding about the National Park.