DORSET’S fallen soldiers will be commemorated with a special sculpture trail.

The new trail will remain in place until December next year to mark the sacrifice of men during the First World War.

It includes a special tribute to the Dorset Yeomanry who served in the Middle East, in the shape of a cluster of pyramids.

The pyramids are inscribed with commemorative motifs of the British, the French and their empires, as well as Turkey, all of who lost thousands of men at Gallipoli.

The National Trust has commissioned the trail for its Stourhead property in Wiltshire, entitled Stourhead will never forget.

The Scraptors Sculpture Group, made up of three Wessex based artists - Paul Boswell, Rachel Macleay and Anthony Wilson, were asked to create four large installations to commemorate the effect of World War One on the local community. They create installations and sculptures mainly using recycled materials.

The three other sculptures include Ebenezer Stone's Bicycle - he was a stable lad at Stourhead who made a bike before 1914 but lost both legs in the war, Arcadia to Armageddon - a 3D mural some ten metres wide, showing the transformation of a peaceful landscape into a battered battlefield and Middle East and Gallipoli - represented by a mural showing the Anzac Sphinx and a camel train, not a train of camels but a train carrying camels. They were transported in railway carriages towards the front in the Middle East.

Two more sculptures will be added in 2016 and they will all remain in place until December 2017 - the centenary of the death of Harry Hoare, the heir to Stourhead.

The project received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

In 2014 they created Bird Henge in Wiltshire, which is visible from a public path, and in 2011 they created the Beyond the Garden Gate sculpture trail at Stourhead.

For more information about the First World War trail and the Scraptors visit scraptors.blogspot.com.

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