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The whole project was born out of a much simpler idea at a meeting of Wells Lions Club way back in 2014, when a small decorative floor display for a Lions initiative, such as a paving-slab swan, was discussed. Steve, the Lions’ member of the WiM group, suggested a much bigger project could be tackled and agreed to look at it. He came up with the idea of a walkable map created in mosaic. It soon became obvious that it was bigger than Lions could do alone, so it morphed into its own project, external to the Lions but still gratefully supported by them. Steve approached Ruth, a local mosaic artist already known to him, whose considerable artistic input has developed the design into the spectacular piece of mosaic artwork proposed today. We also realised we needed other specialist help if the project were ever to have a chance of being completed, which is when the other members of the team became involved…(continued on next slide)

…Since then, our time has been spent on not only finalising the design but also sorting out the many, many hurdles in place for a project of this size and type, not least of which was securing a suitable location for a piece of artwork that could realistically be in place for thousands of years. We eventually settled on the land adjacent to the Bishop’s Barn (a Scheduled Ancient Monument) – part of the Wells Recreation Ground. This, it was felt, would be accessible to a wide range of people and encourage many more to explore the city. Discussions with the local council and the Recreation Ground Trust reached agreement and permissions have been granted.

It wasn’t until we had a location agreed that we could start pulling together all the other elements of the project, and to get us to the point we could officially call ourselves a community project and start raising funds. That happened in May 2018, and this website is the final piece of the puzzle, our fundraising has now started and we hope to see the physical result of all our hard work in the ground sometime around 2021.

During this whole period Ruth has been researching, designing and planning the mosaic. Consulting with some of the experts that will be involved in the painstaking installation she has developed a vision which amazes us all.

The exact position won’t be decided until we’re ready to do the ground works for installation but the red circle on the satellite picture opposite gives you an idea of the rough location we’re working to…

The quality of the materials we use obviously has a dramatic effect on the finished look and feel of the mosaic, as well as its longevity. We are therefore choosing one of the very best suppliers. The tiles, having been manufactured in France by Winckelmans for over 120 years, are fully vitrified with an extreme density of particles. This means they are immensely hard and exceptionally well suited to high impact zones in all environments – commercial or domestic, indoors or out, whilst their vitrification process makes them water and weather resistant.

Available in over 30 heritage colours, the mellow palette and unglazed finish give the tiles a natural and harmonious feel. Their quality, durability and colour retention make them a favourite for professional mosaicists across the world.

We launched the completed design at a ‘grand unveiling’ event in November 2019, at The Swan Hotel in Wells. Part of that final design is shown opposite.

The largest part of the mosaic, taking up the centre of the circle, will be a walkable map of central Wells.   The map itself will be to scale, and will also be orientated to match reality. Its level of definition is restricted only by the size of each individual mosaic tile, and whilst much of the map will show artistic representations of Wells’ features, some of Wells’ most prominent buildings will be represented in a classical, front-on aspect to make them stand out.

Although the map is an important part of the whole design, we’ll also be including many fascinating features around that expand the whole mosaic to 6 metres in diameter.

A key feature will be a circle of gothic windows, each of which will contain a particular historical fact about Wells, along with a circle of quatrefoils containing pictorial representations of a variety of items directly linked to Wells, many of which you may have had no idea about!  So the mosaic is not only useful as a map, it should also be extremely informative for both locals and visitors.

And of course, no artwork depicting Wells would be complete without reference to swans and water, so the design will also incorporate many related features to ensure it is always seated firmly in Wells, even when being shown in photographs or discussed as a famous piece of mosaic art on the other side of the world!