A NEW artwork paying tribute to Blackburn fellwalking guidebook author Alfred Wainwright has been installed in the town's £3.8million Blakey Moor heritage project.

The mural has been created using tiles made by local firm Darwen Terracotta.

The work has been designed by artists James Bloomfield who led a workshop to create the tribute to celebrate the former council worker whose guides to the Lake District have became a ramblers' Bible.

It project is part of Blackburn's National Festival of Making and the latest stage in the part-National Lottery financed Blakey Moor Townscape Heritage Project to turn the area near King George's Hall, Northgate and Blackburn College turned into a restaurant, bar and leisure quarter.

The installation of the tiles was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, but the artwork is now in place on the boundary wall between King George’s Hall and the former Blakey Moor School attended by Mr Wainwright.

As part of the festival's workshop programme, Mr Bloomfield led more than a hundred volunteer participants who marked out and painted individual bisque tiles with underglaze pigment, some forming decorative border tiles and lettering, others depicting important cultural landmarks in Blackburn and Darwen’s history.

Each tile was painted using underglaze and overglaze techniques, incorporating the famous cobalt blue and white of traditional Delft style. The finished tiles were fired in the kilns of Darwen Terracotta.

At the centre of the mural is a well-known quote Mr Wainwright, born in Blackburn in 1907, saying: “You were made to soar, to crash to earth, then to rise and soar again.”

Mr Bloomfield said: "When I envisioned the artwork in 2019 I was thinking about the words on an individual level.

"Now the quote seems rather fitting in these strange and difficult times. I see it as a call to arms for everybody to pick themselves and each other up, to rise and to soar again.”

Cllr Phil Riley, Blackburn with Darwen Council's regeneration boss, said: “This is a lovely new addition to the town’s collection of public artworks that celebrate our rich cultural history and heritage, made even more significant by the participation of local people in its creation. The location at Blakey Moor is also very apt, helping to raise awareness of the fact that Wainwright was a student at the Blakey Moor School and enhancing a blank section of wall in the Northgate Conservation Area."