J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were colleagues at Oxford, pub regulars, and each other’s first readers. Lewis got a memorial in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’Corner in 2013, and now Tolkien is joining him. The tribute is a 2.5-meter tree sculpture by artist Stephen Broadbent, inspired by Tolkien’s own“Tree of Amalion”drawing, to be inlaid into a stone pillar in the south transept using mostly native British woods.
Here’s the detail that’s making fans emotional: part of the wood comes from the black pine at Oxford’s Botanic Garden known as“Tolkien’s tree,”which was felled in 2014. Dean of Westminster David Hoyle praised Tolkien as a master storyteller with a Christian imagination, while Broadbent described the piece as a“Forest of Stories”welcoming Tolkien’s“Tree of Tales.”The idea came from Lord Alton, chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst, with support from the Tolkien Estate.
The dedication is set for spring 2027, marking 90 years since The Hobbit and 50 years since The Silmarillion. With The Lord of the Rings at more than 150 million copies sold across 35-plus languages, this is one of the biggest literary honors of the decade going to one of the most beloved authors of all time. So, serious question: which fantasy world would you rather live in, Middle-earth or Narnia?
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.