Yorkshire’s Olympic Stanza Stones celebrate the 2012 Olympics, standing at the cusp of art and landscape.

Ilkley Literature Festival commissioned the poet Simon Armitage to work with young people in Yorkshire to leave a permanent legacy of carved ‘stanza stones’ inspired by the heritage and landscape of the Pennine Watershed. The aim is to encourage exploration and delight in open space, and the text can be discovered worked into natural outcropping rock, quarried rock and imported pieces of stone.

This project drew on the enabling skills of Tom Lonsdale Placecraft, who helped identify the best locations for ’In Memory of Water’, a collection of individual stanzas, Snow, Rain, Mist, Dew, Puddle and Beck, and secured the permissions. This involved enthusing farmers, water companies, Natural England, English Heritage, the National Trust, planning authorities and parish councils. Diplomacy was required, but not least to manage an unexpected late objection to one site from the British Mountaineering Council.

Specialists engaged by the practice have included a stone carver, structural engineer, building contractors, drystone waller, farmers and stone suppliers. The stanzas can be found on windswept summits, in sheltered hollows, and in woodland glades, aided by a guide booklet for the 47 mile Trail from Marsden to Ilkley.