About Northumberlandia
Northumberlandia is a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near Cramlington, Northumberland, northern England. Made of 1. 5 million tonnes of earth from neighbouring Shotton Surface Mine, it is 34m high and 400m long, set in a 19ha public park. Its creators claim that it is the largest land sculpture in female form in the world. It is intended to be a major tourist attraction with the developers hoping that it will attract an additional 200, 000 visitors a year to Northumberland. It was officially opened by Anne, Princess Royal on 29 August 2012. A day-long Community Opening Event on 20 October 2012 marked the park becoming fully open to the public. It has been nicknamed "Slag Alice" by some – a pun on slag and Slack Alice . DevelopmentDesigned by American landscape architect Charles Jencks, the sculpture was built on the Blagdon Estate, owned by Matt Ridley, a journalist, businessman and author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. The £2. 5 million cost was borne by the Blagdon Estate and the Banks Group, who carried out the construction work. The construction is part of the development of an adjacent open-cast coal mine at Shotton. For this project, it was decided to use part of the excavated material to make a land sculpture rather than return it all to the surface mine, as is normally done at the end of such operations.
Northumberlandia Description
Northumberlandia is a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near Cramlington, Northumberland, northern England. Made of 1. 5 million tonnes of earth from neighbouring Shotton Surface Mine, it is 34m high and 400m long, set in a 19ha public park. Its creators claim that it is the largest land sculpture in female form in the world. It is intended to be a major tourist attraction with the developers hoping that it will attract an additional 200, 000 visitors a year to Northumberland. It was officially opened by Anne, Princess Royal on 29 August 2012. A day-long Community Opening Event on 20 October 2012 marked the park becoming fully open to the public. It has been nicknamed "Slag Alice" by some – a pun on slag and Slack Alice . DevelopmentDesigned by American landscape architect Charles Jencks, the sculpture was built on the Blagdon Estate, owned by Matt Ridley, a journalist, businessman and author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. The £2. 5 million cost was borne by the Blagdon Estate and the Banks Group, who carried out the construction work. The construction is part of the development of an adjacent open-cast coal mine at Shotton. For this project, it was decided to use part of the excavated material to make a land sculpture rather than return it all to the surface mine, as is normally done at the end of such operations.