Northumberlandia is a unique piece of public art set in a fourty six acre community park with free public access and four miles of footpaths on and around the man-made landform in Cramlington, Northumberland, North East England.
The centrepiece of the park is Northumberlandia, a stunning human landform sculpture of a reclining lady. She is more than a hundred feet tall at her tallest point and a quarter of a mile long. She lies on her back with her hair spread out, upper body in supine position and her lower torso twisted towards her left, as if she is dancing. Northumberlandia is said to be largest human landform sculpture in the world and comprises 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil.
Northumberlandia was built by the Banks Group in 2004 as part of the restoration of the adjacent Shotton surface coal mine. The project is known as Restoration First and required an additional piece of land donated by the landowner, the Blagdon Estate, adjacent to the mine and provided a new landscape for the community to enjoy while the mine is still operational. The £3 million cost of the project was privately funded by the Banks Group and the Blagdon Estate.
The work was designed and managed by Charles Jencks and took two years to build and shape the curvaceous figure with 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil from the mine. Her core comprises rock which is layered over with clay and topped with soil over which a fine grass now grows.
Charles Jencks is a renowned cultural theorist, landscape designer and architectural historian. He was born in Baltimore Maryland and he has lived in Britain since 1970.
