ONE OF East Lancashire’s most popular landmarks looks set to become a chart topper.

A photograph taken at dawn of The Singing Ringing Tree at Crown Point above Burnley features as the cover artwork for the new album by British rock band Thunder which is released on Friday and is widely tipped to go straight in at number one on the album chart.

Thunder’s guitarist and songwriter Luke Morley explained how the iconic sculpture came to be on the album cover.

“The album’s called All The Right Noises which is a lyric from one of the songs,” he said. “I was wondering what we should do for the sleeve so I Googled ‘bizarre musical instruments’ hoping for some kind of inspiration and the Singing Ringing Tree came up in the search.

“It looked really interesting and it struck me how much it looked like something our old mate Storm Thorgerson would have dreamed up.”

Thorgerson was a designer with the famous Hipgnosis studio which produced classic album covers including Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and also some of Thunder’s early albums.

Last July Luke and photographer James Joyce spent the weekend in Burnley photographing the Singing Ringing Tree.

“We tried to get it at different times of the day but when we got back to the hotel we both agreed we hadn’t quite got the shot we wanted,” said Luke.

James said we had to go back and be there when the sun came up so around 3am we were on top of a hill in Burnley. It was pretty eerie because it was dark and you could hear all these strange sounds coming from the sculpture as the wind blew through it.”

The early morning start was worth it as the dawn shot was the one used on the cover.

“People think it’s been Photoshopped but that is the picture as it was taken,” said Luke.

A special edition of the album even features a pop-up version of the Singing Ringing Tree.

“That was our labels idea but I really like it,” said Luke.

Completed in 2007, the Singing Ringing Tree was part of the Panopticons project which created landmarks in open spaces around East Lancashire. Designed by Tonkin Liu it received an Award for architectural excellence from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Formed in London in 1989, Thunder have built up a devoted following and are arguably now more popular than ever - a series of arena shows, originally planned for last autumn have been rearranged for May 2022.

“We’re all a bit like a coiled spring,” said Luke. “The album’s been ready since the start of lockdown and it’s great it’s finally going to come out. We’ll just have to wait a bit longer to play those songs live.”

Thunder’s All The Right Noises is out on Friday