People make important connections with their environments - whether it's a safe space to meet friends, a green space to enjoy spending time in nature, or an active space to stay fit and healthy.
A favourite place is unique to the individual yet relatable to everyone - often we all see the beauty of these places but have our own take on why.
We've come up with some stunning new ways of sharing and celebrating some of the reasons why a location holds a special place in the heart.
Memorial benches
A memorial bench or seat is a traditional tribute to loved ones who have passed - leaving a lasting imprint on their favourite place or forming part of a new area, such as a remembrance garden, created in their name.
From seaside promenades to parks and picnic spots, a memorial seat often features a plaque displayed centrally on the backrest with a name and sometimes a message, quote or inspiring text.
Our external seats include the option of adding a stainless steel plaque to the slats. This personalised service allows clients to submit their chosen words to one of our street furniture experts who then oversee its creation and delivery.
Over the years Broxap has been honoured to create memorial benches for locations across the UK, with each piece of furniture created to connect people with happy times in happy places.
Stand-out projects include the time we were trusted to integrate a precious one-off hand-carved memorial into a Ripon Seat for the Pig Dyke Molly dancers. The bench was commissioned to remember a long-serving member of the team and a stalwart of the community, Sadie Heritage.
In another scheme, Bridgewater Community Healthcare Trust chose to create an peaceful outdoor area where colleagues could remember all their friends and workmates who lost their lives in service, each one named on their own plaque on two Eastgate Seats.
And of course the passing of Queen Elizabeth II prompted communities everywhere to honour the longest reigning monarch in ways which would keep the Royal in our hearts for generations to come, such as a laser-cut planter full of blooms.
Children's memorials
Inscriptions and memorials get people talking and for children it can be an accessible way to deal with sensitive subjects such as the loss of a classmate or teacher.
Our timber playground range including play towers and play sculptures, and our playground furniture collections, can all be engraved or customised.
We have a specialist sport and play team who can discuss ideas and suggest new and inspiring ways to capture the thoughts and feelings of young people.
We've renamed our play boats in honour of past pupils, and created engraved archways leading into memorial gardens.
As well as working with teachers and school business managers, we collaborate with family and friends connected with schools and communities, such as when we built the Izzy Bee play sculpture to remember a young cancer patient, the late Isabel ‘Izzy’ McEgan, at her former school.
And in other cases we've maximised the potential of fundraising budgets, such as creating a unique dinosaur buddy bench, keeping watch over a school grieving the loss of a student.
Messages of hope
As well as remembering those who have died, street furniture can also be a vehicle to offer hope and extend support to the community.
In Leeds, the city's civic trust ordered 15 Lakeside Seats from Broxap. These were donated to community groups who were then invited to decorate the street furniture in their own ways to celebrate how neighbourhoods came together to help each other out during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Take A Seat campaign resulted in a shared history trail around the city, carving out spaces where residents and visitors could sit and reflect on the strengths of their community.
The power of the park bench hit the headlines on the back of TV series After Life, with Netflix teaming up with the charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) to install benches of hop across the UK.
The TV show featured memorable scenes of self-reflection from characters sitting on a park bench, and in response to this more than 25 benches, engraved with the message ‘Hope Is Everything’, were installed across the country to stimulate positive conversations and promote mental health support.
Traditionally our playground benches are engraved with pictures connected with learning themes such as types of insect, leaves or planets.
But this is just a starting point. At Raglan Primary School in Bromley, benches were engraved with messages of friendship and advice for the future.
And while the standard engraving on our iconic Storyteller's Chair is the much loved opening line from classic fairytales ‘Once upon a time’, there's no stopping some of our customers from bringing this traditional seat into a new dimension with the phrase: “In a Galaxy Far, Far Away.....”
Inspirational street furniture
As a new development, St Mary’s Garden Village included a community green space to bring neighbours together.
Families are welcomed into this space through a timber archway engraved with the name of the blossoming location.
As well as timber engravings and inscriptions, our steel and cast iron street furniture can also be embellished and customised to connect people to the places around them.
In Worcester, a unique Black Worcester Pear finial was created for a series of signage columns in the city centre business improvement district. Further down the columns, the words: Play, Live, Work, Shop, Eat celebrated just some of the reasons to visit the city.
Meanwhile in Newham, litter bins were transformed into works of art with the addition of colourful, laser cut butterflies into a series of Derby Contemporary Litter Bins.
This technique was chosen by contractors working on a high profile community improvement programme.
As a UK-based street furniture designer and manufacturer, one of our biggest strengths is the flexibility we offer our customers, from the types of materials available to customisation options.
From poignant, well-chosen words on a memorial bench plaque, to a pirate ship play unit like the one we created for St Francis C of E School in Falmouth our teams can help families and communities find a lasting way to celebrate life.
Get in touch today and discover more about our engravings, inscriptions and customisation service.