THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL ARBORETUM Staffordshire

“It’s not a cemetery. It’s a place of life, represented by the 30,000 trees planted here, where older and younger generations alike can wander and wonder.”

So says the official welcome to this extraordinary space at Alrewas, near Lichfield, which opened to the public in May 2001. Covering 150 acres on a former gravel pit, it’s the UK’s yearround centre for Remembrance. The arboretum was conceived by Commander David Childs CBE, as a focal point for the whole country to remember the fallen, but in a spiritually uplifting way.

You can wander for miles among the plantations, where thousands of native and non-native species flourish and thrive, along with wild plants, grassland, reedbeds and wetland. Among them are 350 memorials commemorating different groups and organisations: army regiments, air force squadrons, naval services, fire and rescue services, ethnic minority groups. There is even a special woodland for children lost in war. The Remembrance Centre houses permanent and temporary galleries and exhibitions, while the serene Millennium Chapel hosts the UK’s only daily Remembrance service.

The centrepiece is the Armed Forces Memorial, a circular symphony in white, some 43m in diameter, bearing the names of thousands of men and women who were lost while on duty for their country. As the arboretum guide points out, it’s about more than just names: “Behind every name on the memorial are the wives, husbands, partners, parents, children and colleagues who loved them and who live with the pain and consequences of their loss every day.”

But Commander Childs’ hope was that the arboretum would look to the future as well as the past. The trees, he hoped, would grow and mature in a world at peace.