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Development and Progress
On April 7, 2009, The St. Columba School Band, comprising forty five young persons, joined members of the St. Andrew's Society board as they inspected the installation of their Society's bollard into the park.   The Bollard is the first of fourteen being currently installed in the Park along its perimeter, which bear the shields of the leading Anglo-American societies and government agencies. Twelve of these are shown here: 
 Photo: Cutty McGill
A progress animation... And more views of "before and after"...  'El' Second and Third Avenue Lines, Hanover Square and Pearl Street, Manhattan. (March 16, 1936) Photographer: Berenice Abbott. From the collection of the New York Public Library  A photostitch of Hanover Square in 2003  November 2008: Photograph by John Kinnear
Continuing an ongoing relationship, the British Memorial Garden is recognised on the National Register of the Living Memorials Project. Read more at the Living Memorials web site by clicking below: 
November, 2007:  Commissioner William T. Castro, NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation, Camilla G. Hellman, MBE, president of the British Memorial Garden Trust, Inc., Catrin Brace of the Welsh Assembly and Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel inaugurate the planting of 3000 Tenby daffodils in the British Memorial Garden at Hanover Square. The daffodil bulbs, which will make a fine showing in the spring, were the gift of the National Botanical Garden of Wales. July, 2007:  With the construction phase of the British Memorial Garden nearing the final phases of completion, landscaping the park is ongoing. The garden is being enjoyed by the public even while planting goes on around them. In the fall, hundreds of bulbs will be planted in the garden, for springtime color. 
April, 2007:  Planting begins in the British Memorial Garden with the arrival of the topiary yew trees. The 6 to 10 foot tall trees are being planted in the garden along with boxwoods, marking the start of landscaping in the park. The yews will be surrounded by bronze armatures which will guide the trees into the whimsical topiary shapes envisioned by the garden’s designers Isabel and Julian Bannerman. 
December, 2006:  Rodney N.M. Johnson, Vice President of the British Memorial Garden Trust, Inc., takes a seat on the new Portland stone benches currently being installed in Hanover Square. The installation process of the benches, which were manufactured in Northern Ireland, will take approximately two to three weeks.
June 12, 2006: a report from John Kinnear, Project Architect  The British Memorial Garden has been under continual construction since breaking ground last May, and much has been accomplished in that time. We are pleased to give you this update. The utilities and infrastructure have been completed, and the boulevard of lights has been operational for the last few months. The lighting system is a wonderful new feature for the park. There will also be enhanced lighting under the benches, the wiring for which has been finished. The hand-carved map of Great Britain and its territories has been laid, and final touch-ups to the paving is being done by sculptor Simon Verity. Three stones that were damaged in transit from Scotland are being recreated. Yew trees which were located in the US by garden designers Isabel and Julian Bannerman will be planted shortly. The boxwood hedging that will run throughout the garden will also be planted – in the meantime, it is being tended carefully by Case Overdevest in New Jersey. The London Bollards that will protect the garden from encroaching traffic have been cast in England and should be ready for shipment to the US shortly. Recently, three of the Scottish-American societies were presented with replicas of their shields as they will appear on the Bollards.    Left: Caledonian Club president Andrew McMillan. Center: Heather Bain and Alan Bain of the American Scottish Foundation. Right: Duncan Bruce of St. Andrew's Society Over half of the Portland stone benches have been manufactured, and the balance of them should be completed by the end of June for shipment from Northern Ireland. During the past few months, we have been working with S. McConnell & Sons, providing them with computer drawings that show precisely where the curves in the paving are. The stainless steel legs that will support the benches have been produced, and the footings that will support the benches have all been installed in Hanover Square. The large Portland stone planters have been completed and are awaiting shipment from Northern Ireland. The Memorial Railing, which will run along Pearl Street and have 67 obelisks representing the British victims of 9/11, is now about 50 percent complete. We are now working on perfecting the artwork for the floral medallions which will on the obelisks. Although not all of the elements of the park may be in place, we are planning on holding the annual Memorial Concert in Hanover Square on September 11, 2006, an event which is important to the British Memorial Garden Trust and to the people of Lower Manhattan. A formal opening and dedication of the garden will be held in the spring of 2007.
New York architect visits Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, to inspect Portland stone benches  Mourne Observer, 15 February 2006: Granite from Mourne, Northern Ireland, is set to feature in the New York memorial garden for British victims of the 9/11 terror attacks. There had been no plans to use the local granite in the construction of the $6 million garden in the centre of New York but after visiting Mourne a leading American architect said he believed it would be fitting to incorporate it. Mr. John Kinnear, who has been project architect for the memorial garden since its outset, was paying a visit to S. McConnell and Sons to inspect the Portland stone benches the Kilkeel firm is making for the garden. After hearing about the rich heritage of Mourne granite during his visit Mr. Kinnear said a place should be found for the local stone in the park, which is being built on a three quarters of an acre site in the Wall Street area of New York. It is hoped Mourne granite will be part of the ‘memorial railing’ that will commemorate the 67 British people who died in the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers. “We are having a traditional metal railing, which is coming from York in England,” Mr. Kinnear explained. “It will have 67 obelisk finials on the railing and each of them is going to have one of the four symbols of the United Kingdom on it, the rose, the thistle, the flax for Northern Ireland and the daffodil for Wales. That fence is 140 ft long and it is going to sit on a granite kerb. Because of this trip I am going to propose we use the local granite.” The New York man was paying his first ever visit to Northern Ireland, a journey that was delayed by nine hours because of the snow blizzards that struck the city. “I was over to London to see the Diana Memorial and some of the other work carried out by S. McConnell and Sons,” Mr. Kinnear said. “I can say we were very impressed. That essentially clinched it, we knew that they had the technology and skill to undertake this job.” Norman McKibbin, Managing Director of S. McConnell and Sons, estimated it would take three to four weeks to complete the production of the benches and another three weeks for them to be shipped to New York. The funding for the memorial garden is being raised privately without contributions from the American and British Governments. S. McConnell and Sons is treating the job as a non-profit making venture and the benches are being transported to America free of charge by P&O. It is expected the garden will be completed this summer and officially opened in early 2007.
 As the winter weather remained good, construction has continued on the British Memorial Garden at Hanover Square. Here employees of Plaza Construction can be seen laying and cutting the stone for the map of Great Britain that forms the paving of the garden. A well-worn blueprint of the project is on hand. Photographs by Norman McGrath.  
 Michael Jacque of Gander & White, along with Camilla G. Hellman, John Kinnear, Rodney N.M. Johnson and two Gander & White employees watch as the Prince of Wales’s center stone is laid in the British Memorial Garden on January 12, 2006. British Airways in conjunction with Gander & White provided the shipping for the 500 pound stone, which is carved from Morayshire stone. Designed by Isabel Bannerman, the stone was carved by Simon Verity. 
 “This photograph taken from India House Club shows the construction progress on the British Memorial Garden as of October 24, 2005. Most of the concrete sub-slab has been poured, and most of the underground infrastructure has been installed. Work on laying the Caithness and Morayshire paving stones continues and will eventually cover all concreted areas. The laying of paving stones will continue until the daytime temperature is below freezing.” John Kinnear, Project Architect  Preparing for the visit of Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla G. Hellman confers with British Ambassador Sir David Manning as Hanover Square is transformed.
On Tuesday, May 10th, ground was broken for the new British Memorial Garden being built in Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. The groundbreaking ceremony symbolizes the start of site construction for the new New York City garden. On hand for the groundbreaking were speakers Commissioner Adrian Benepe, New York Department of Parks & Recreation, British Consul-General Sir Philip Thomas KCVO, CMG, and British Memorial Garden Trust president Camilla G. Hellman. Also helping in the groundbreaking were Manhattan Borough Commissioner William T. Castro, project manager John Kinnear, the Earl of Albemarle, British Consul Patrick E. Owens, OBE, and British Memorial Garden Trust vice president Rodney N.M. Johnson, MBE. A group of some sixty supporters of the British Memorial Garden project were on hand to celebrate the historic occasion and to raise a glass to the future of the project. Among those offering toasts were Commissioner Benepe, Sir Philip Thomas and Charles Wolfe, whose British wife died in the tragedy of September 11, 2001.  Sir Philip Thomas, Camilla G. Hellman, Commissioner William T. Castro, Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Rodney N.M. Johnson, Patrick E. Owens, the Earl of Albemarle and John Kinnear.  BRITISH MEMORIAL GARDEN By Judith Kampfner in New York, NY; May 14, 2005  While debate continues over what will be built at Ground Zero, work has started this week on the construction of a new Memorial park the size of a city block in the historic Wall St neighborhood. It is dedicated to the 67 British victims who died on sept 11th. Judith Kampfner reports from the ground breaking ceremony. REPORTER: Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, is used to wielding a shovel but today he’s flanked by a long haired British Earl and women in large hats. He is reading from a Dylan Thomas poem about nature’s healing power. REPORTER: The three quarters of an acre site will be torn apart from the paving stones upwards. There will be no standard Parks Department fixtures because every element from benches to lamps will be made by craftsmen incorporating British materials. BENEPE: It is a rather undistinguished space right now and it will become one of the most spectacular parks in the city when it is done. There is no park anywhere in the city which has this level of talent working on its design. REPORTER: Stonemason Simon Verity will interlock 240 paving flagstones which will become the base of this British Memorial Garden. He’ll weave two colors of stone have been brought from the wilds of Scotland, to create a poetic representation of the map of the British Isles. REPORTER: Verity’s workshop is at the side of St John the Divine Cathedral. For ten years, he worked on stone blocks around the main church door. For the British garden he has is hand carving inscriptions of each of the 95 counties of England. The lettering is wild and the background designs convey his ideas about the landscape.Wavy wheatfields, flamboyant curlicues and wild hedgerows. VERITY: People would say to me.. don’t you get bored carving out this word “ shire” and I say no, each of these is a different shire.” VERITY: As I’m chiseling, I’m thinking of the letter form I’m carving and the extraordinary country I’m from. REPORTER: His hundreds of thousands of hammer blows will mark the hardwearing flagstone for years to come. VERITY: If you put a lot of feeling and energy into it, that will come out. REPORTER: A winding snake of water will splash over the stones down the natural slope of the site of the British Memorial Garden. It’s a modern variant of a curving Welsh stream called a rill. The landscape architects who were chosen to lay out the garden have just worked on a formal design for Prince Charles’ estate. But here they have let their imagination run wild. Topiary sculptures up to sixteen feet high will have whimsical shapes - like ice cream cones and chess figures – Alice in wonderland style. The garden will be anchored by a sculpture from Britain’s celebrated artist Anish Kapoor. Called “Unity”, it’s a shiny black granite monolith symbolizing Anglo American friendship. CAMILLA HELLMAN: Anish Kapoor won our competition for a sculpture REPORTER:Camilla Hellman the driving force behind the garden says the artist has positioned it to reflect light coming in from the East river. HELLMAN: It will be a hollowed out chamber reflecting light with a flame inside. REPORTER: The inventiveness of the park can be seen also in fibre optic lights coming out from boxwood hedges and curving benches and plantings of simple as well as formal flowers. The color scheme is cool whites pinks blues and lavenders staying the same throughout the seasons. HELLMAN: This garden is tradition but with edge, we’re quirky in Britain, we’re eccentric. There’s an eccentricity to this and a personality. REPORTER: Although this is a memorial garden, there’ll be no explicit reference to the World trade bombing but Simon Verity has carved 67 different finials - decorative fence tops - as a tribute to the 67 Britons who died. One supporter of the garden is Charles Wolfe. His wife who was a native of Wales, worked on the 97th floor of Tower One. He said he was thrilled that the park had design integrity. But from his own perspective - WOLFE: It should have had names, but delicately done, not in your face – names and what county they came from but in a situation like this, I leave it to the designers because they have done such a good job. But it’s very personal to me. I have no grave for my wife. REPORTER: Wolfe said he would come down to watch the design take shape and see the garden grow. It’s a gift he said from the Ango American community to New York. The British Memorial Garden is tucked away in area with British roots – aptly called Hanover Square in 1714 after King George 1. Walk down Wall St, take a right on Water St and you’ll come upon it. This oasis in the canyons of financial highrises will officially open next summer.
 On Saturday, October 30, 2004, site construction began on the future British Memorial Garden with the relocation of the sculpture of Abraham De Peyster. The statue of De Peyster, which has sat in Hanover Square since 1976, is going to be refurbished and then placed in a new home at City Hall Park.
 “I am among the Highland cows of Northern Caithness, living in a fisherman’s cottage in John O’Groats, taking the schoolbus through the pastoral communities to Castletown, which was where in the 19th century the paving slabs were floated off to London and New York, and now the Caithness and Morayshire stones are cut into curved ribbons that I then engrave. Cows, sheep and seals are our neighbours, the days are drawing in, but the weather at the present mild enough to swim; the stones are so hard that I hope they last forever.” - Simon Verity  Construction on the British Memorial Garden began in June in Caithness, Scotland, where Simon Verity is carving the paving stones into a map of the United Kingdom. Click on the links below to see 360' panoramas of Simon Verity's working environment: 
House (full screen high res)
Paving (full screen high res)
House (pop-up low res) Paving (pop-up low res)
One of the most prominent features of the British Memorial Garden will be the unique use of Scottish stone throughout the garden. Stone quarried in two councils will be used; the dark luminous gray of Caithness stone and the creamy white limestone of Morayshire.
Two artist's renderings of the completed garden by Michael McCann: |
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Aerial view of Hanover Square |
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Hanover Square , view north |
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Hanover Square, view south |
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Hanover Square, Site Plan |
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Hanover Square, Utility Plan |
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Larger copies of these plans and photographs are available from our offices, below. |
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Telephone: (212) 861-1871 Fax: (212) 861-6529 |
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