National Memorial Arboretum

Staffordshire, UK

Graeme Mitcheson

Coloured glass has been used in this memorial to represent the oceans of the world. Two further panels of yellow, representing the rising sun and red for the setting sun and the blood spilled at sea and on land are also included in the design. On sunny days the glass panels cast the shadow of a warship on the paved area. The poem around the edge of the memorial is the Tennyson poem ‘crossing the bar’, a phrase used when shipmates die.

Graeme Mitcheson sculpted a Naval Officer, and commissioned Proto Studios to realise his design in ceramic transparent coloured free-standing glass.

The glass was CNC cut to the shapes and, once decorated, then structurally bonded by us into steel pockets set flush with the top of the paving.

Proto Studios arranged the structural engineering calculations to make sure the artwork could survive in a busy public area, together with the wind loadings in an exposed site.

Glass Specification: 19mm and 15mm toughened and laminated glass.
Techniques used: Screenprinting, Transparent enamels; Glass bending