The Forest of Stories: An Unusual Memorial to Tolkien Will Appear at Westminster Abbey

According to the official website of Westminster Abbey, a memorial will be installed next to the memorial of Clive S. Lewis — the author of "The Chronicles of Narnia" and a close friend of Tolkien. The project was created by British artist and sculptor Stephen Broadbent. The main element of the composition will be a tree surrounded by a unique "forest of stories." The inspiration for this came from Tolkien's own drawing "The Tree of Amalion," which is connected to his idea of the "Tree of Stories." The memorial, approximately 2.5 meters tall, will be vertically embedded in the stone column of the south transept of the abbey. The primary material will be wood from local species. A special detail of the composition is a fragment of black pine (Pinus nigra), which grew for many years in the Botanic Garden of the University of Oxford. It is known that Tolkien loved this tree and often spent time near it. In 2014, the pine had to be cut down. Broadbent's concept is that the memorial should create a feeling for visitors as if a passage to another world is opening before them. The artist compares the composition to a "forest of stories," at the center of which is Tolkien's own "Tree of Stories." The Dean of Westminster Abbey, David Hoyle, noted that the new memorial is intended to remind people of several aspects of Tolkien's personality — an outstanding storyteller, writer, and scholar. Most of Tolkien's professional life was connected with the University of Oxford. He worked on Old and Middle English languages and literature and studied ancient Scandinavian texts. In addition to literary works, the writer created drawings, poems, and children's stories, and developed his own languages and writing systems for his fictional worlds. "The Hobbit" was published in 1937, and the world created by Tolkien later developed in "The Lord of the Rings." His works became classics of fantasy, were translated into dozens of languages, and had a tremendous impact on the development of the genre. Tolkien will join the ranks of outstanding writers whose memory is immortalized in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. Here lie the graves or memorials of more than a hundred writers and poets, including William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and the Brontë sisters.