''Northumberlandia'' (the "Lady of the North") is a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near

Cramlington Cramlington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 6 miles (9 kilometres) north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and 10 miles (16 kilometres) north of its city centre. The name suggests a probable founding by the Danes or Anglo-Saxons. T ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, northern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Made of 1.5 million tonnes of earth from neighbouring

Shotton Surface Mine Shotton Surface Mine was an open cast coal mine located on the estate of Blagdon Hall, Northumberland, UK, operated by Banks Group. The mine was granted permission by the government in 2007, despite being refused permission by Blyth Valley Council ...

, it is high and long, set in a public park. Its creators claim that it is the largest land sculpture in female form in the world. It is intended to be a major tourist attraction, with the developers hoping that it will attract an additional 200,000 visitors a year to Northumberland. It was officially opened by

Anne, Princess Royal Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of ...

on 29 August 2012. A day-long Community Opening Event on 20 October 2012 marked the park becoming fully open to the public.

Development

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

landscape architect

Charles Jencks Charles Alexander Jencks (21 June 1939 – 13 October 2019) was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous i ...

, the sculpture was built on the Blagdon Estate, owned by

Matt Ridley Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, (born 7 February 1958), is a British science writer, journalist and businessman. He is known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics and has been a regular contributor to ''Th ...

, a journalist, businessman and author of '' The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature''. The £2.5 million cost was borne by the Blagdon Estate and the

Banks Group The Banks Group is a family owned business headquartered in Durham, but working across Scotland and the North of England, established in 1976. Banks develops and operates in a variety of business areas including property development, renewables ...

, who carried out the construction work. The construction is part of the development of an adjacent

open-cast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

at Shotton. For this project, it was decided to use part of the excavated material to make a land sculpture rather than return it all to the surface mine, as is normally done at the end of such operations.

References

External links

*
In pictures: ''Northumberlandia'' - the reclining lady
BBC, 30 August 2012
Banks Group – Shotten/Northumberlandia

Satellite view
{{Coord, 55, 5, 18.2, N, 1, 37, 41.1, W, type:landmark, display=title Landscape architecture Outdoor sculptures in England Monuments and memorials in Northumberland Land art Geoglyphs Sculptures of women in the United Kingdom Cramlington

Development

See also

References

External links