Features
The Arboretum contains over 50,000 trees, with more being added each year.
There are over 150 memorials and plots for the armed forces, civilian organisations and voluntary bodies who have played a part in serving the country; and even HMS Amethyst's cat. A number of corporate war memorials – from British banks, building societies, and insurance companies – have been relocated to the grounds,, when the original owners became unable or unwilling to care for them. At the heart of the Arboretum is the Armed Forces Memorial, which is a tribute to almost 16,000 service personnel who have lost their lives in conflict or as a result of terrorism since the end of the Second World War. At 11 am on 11 November each year the sun shines through two slits in the outer and inner walls of the memorial, casting a shaft of light across a wreath in the centre.
Within the Arboretum is the Millennium Chapel of Peace and Forgiveness where, at 11 am each day, an act of remembrance takes place. Following the two minutes silence, accompanied by the Last Post and Reveille, there is an introductory talk about the Arboretum.
The Armed Forces Memorial was dedicated in October 2007 by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of the Queen.
In 2010, the Volunteers of the National Memorial Arboretum were awarded The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award that any voluntary group can received, equivalent to the MBE.
Read more about this topic: National Memorial Arboretum
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These, then, will be some of the features of democracy ... it will be, in all likelihood, an agreeable, lawless, particolored commonwealth, dealing with all alike on a footing of equality, whether they be really equal or not.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)