A Historical Totem Pole at Burrator

To coincide with the opening of the new Burrator Discovery Centre, it has always been a long term dream of the South West Lakes Trust team at Burrator to have a totem pole to mark the entrance to the centre, carved into the trunk that remains from a sycamore tree.

In keeping with the Burrator Historic and Natural Environment Project the Trust wanted to provide something that depicts all the different areas of interest that can be seen when you explore Burrator and to include the popular key features which the site is famous for.

In June the Trust launched a competition to pupils from local schools to see if they could design a totem pole that highlighted what they thought visitors should know about when visiting Burrator. Judging the competition was an extremely difficult decision however the panel decided on a combination of 15 entries from which the final design was created.

Local chainsaw sculptor Gary Orange made the design a reality. It took Gary a week to create this amazing work of art, working long into the evening and it was unveiled last month as part of the Trust's Celebration Day.

There has been so much praise for this piece of work and his skillmanship that we wanted to do it justice by dedicating an article purely to it.

If you would like to contact Gary his e-mail address is: gryorange@yahoo.ca. For more information on the wider project, other events and opportunities coming up and opening times for the Burrator Discovery Centre please contact Emily Cannon on 01822 855700 or e-mail: heritage@swlakestrust.org.uk