Landmark of hope is making ‘tremendous progress’

Landmark of hope is making ‘tremendous progress’

A huge monument to God’s willingness to care for his people is moving nearer to the building stage.

The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, 50 metres high and on a strategic 10-acre site between the M6 and M42 motorways, is expected to be seen by more than 500,000 people a day.

Snug Architects of Totton, Southampton, whose design for the project beat more than 130 competitors from 28 countries, will continue to oversee the project to completion. Their stand at CRE Midlands 2020 introduced the wall to visitors.

Richard Gamble (pictured), former chaplain at Leicester City Football Club, had the vision for a colossal national landmark of hope with each of its one million bricks representing an answered prayer. The project aims to preserve and celebrate the UK’s Christian heritage and inspire the nation to pray. Using state-of-the-art technology, visitors will use their phones to read the answered prayers to which each brick relates.

Richard, the wall’s chief executive, said: ‘We want to create an iconic structure the nation will not only be proud of but find inspirational – a landmark of hope.’

The Möbius strip concept forms a continuous loop that allows visitors to process through a gravity-defying triumphant arch, before encircling the wall. With seemingly no support where the strip curves and twists, the arch will be over 40m high with an 80m span – significantly larger than Sir Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, which is 20m tall with wings measuring 54m across.

A visitor centre, bookshop and 24-hour chaplaincy support service are part of the plans.   

Richard, whose book Remember, was recently published, added: ‘We are making tremendous progress and are thrilled with response across the country to this project. Several large donations have catapulted us forward. We will start to build the access road in September which will coincide with a crowdfunding campaign – and begin the mobius strip in 2022. We are on target to complete building at the end of that year.’

You can contribute to the project by sending in your answered prayer here or you can contribute financially here.

• Snug Architects are exhibiting at CRE National (12-14 Oct, Sandown Park, Surrey)

Our next exhibitions