Art student Edward in a field of his own with Lorton Meadow stunt (From Dorset Echo)

Art student Edward in a field of his own with Lorton Meadow stunt

9:30am Friday 22nd May 2009

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A DISAPPEARING Dorset meadow will live on – in London.

Art student Edward Llewellyn intervened after learning that parts of the 200-year-old Lorton meadow were being bulldozed to make way for the Weymouth Relief Road.

So he dug up more than a tonne of it and transported it to the capital to give away to passers-by.

The Royal College of Art student has found a way of preserving parts of the meadow – by giving it to people for free in the hope that they will give it a ‘good home’.

Edward, 24, is currently completing an MA in communication, art and design and said he was looking for a way to show Londoners how much green space is being lost in rural communities. He said: “I was looking at areas around the country that are being destroyed and thrown away.

“I thought about doing airports at first or the Olympic site in London but I felt it was more powerful to talk about open countryside that is being destroyed. After some research I found out about the Weymouth Relief Road.

“I think it’s a shame they’re building it because I think it’s going to make the area more like Brighton or Blackpool in the long run.”

Edward contacted staff at the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Lorton Meadows Reserve and Wildlife Centre before coming to the area and taking clods of earth from areas earmarked for the relief road.

He added: “I wouldn’t have been able to take the land away if it was not for the compulsory purchase order.

“The first time I went to the meadow to start collecting bits of earth, one of the Skanska employees came over and asked what I was doing and I explained that I was an artist doing a project.

“Most of the people who pass by the skip have thought it was a nice idea.

“I think people wanted to take some of it because it is symbolic.

“They didn’t take it for what it is, they took it for what it represents.”

Edward set up a skip containing bits of the meadow and a notice board explaining the project alongside Brompton Road in Kensington, London.

The board tells passers-by that: “The meadows are now being destroyed to make way for a new road.

“If you would like to keep a piece of this land alive please just take some and give it a good home.”

Edward said he brought around one and a half tonnes of earth from Weymouth back to London in the back of his car, over two journeys.

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