The new landmark aims to profile a million answered prayers and will be built around the size of Sydney's Opera House - on a site just north of London.
The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, will be built between the M6 and M42 motorways, and aims to make hope visible by profiling a million answered prayers on a site near Coleshill on the outskirts of Birmingham.
The much anticipated new national landmark, the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, recently launched its final crowdfunding effort before building of the structure commences - aiming to raise £1 million in just 40 days, with each penny contributing directly to the building of the monument itself. So far, Christians from across the UK have given $750,000 (£400,000) in four weeks toward the much anticipated new national landmark.
Founder and Visionary, Richard Gamble says, “The response has been amazing –a movement of people is being raised up across the UK. We have so many great stories –one church asked every member to bring their loose change and raised over $1,000, a local farmer is selling his eggs on the side of the road, and others have made contributions big and small. Everyone is doing their bit to make hope visible to the nation."
The public art piece will stand at 169 feet, just shy of the size of Sydney Opera House, and is expected to attract 300,000 visitors each year, contributing £9.3 million to the local economy. The project aims to generate funds for charities and good works, in its first 20 years, and donate one million bricks to local social housing.
Richard Gamble, says, “The idea behind Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer has always been to build a crowd-created piece of public art, that will make hope visible. We’re not building this landmark to have something nice to look at, we’re building a community-focused structure that carries a legacy; generations in hundreds of years’ time will see it and be inspired. Every penny donated through this Crowdfunder will go directly into building the Eternal Wall and create a people-driven place of hope.”
Once constructed, all profits raised from the ongoing operation of Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer will fund one million bricks to be donated to local social housing - a brick for each answered prayer. Organisers behind the project will link with two social housing partners, as well as local council housing charities, and international social housing initiatives to provide enough finance to build 100 houses.
Gamble continues, “This sculpture is making hope visible, whilst planting seeds of hope to meet others at their point of greatest need, also helps change their narrative to one of restoration. Social housing is at a crisis point in the UK and it is our hope that we can play a small part in contributing to providing more homes. Our hope would be that Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer creates opportunity to support those charities who are working to help those most in need.”
The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer was given the green light in 2020, after the local council granted planning permission, and the UK's Secretary of State ratified the decision.
Building begins on the monumental structure in 2022, with the road being the first focus of construction starting this month. The iconic ‘eternal’ arch structure will be constructed using one million bricks with each representing individual prayers that have been answered for people across the country.
Steve Maxey, Chief Executive, North Warwickshire Borough Council, says, “We are greatly excited by this project – I strongly believe it will come to be as loved by people locally and nationally, and brilliantly complements our work on improving mental health and wellbeing.”
Half a million cars are expected to drive past each day and it will be in view of planes landing into Birmingham Airport.
Andy Street CBE, Mayor of the West Midlands says, “It’s an incredibly ambitious, stunning project... in terms of a real statement, a landmark for the Midlands, I think it’s an incredibly progressive, ambitious piece of architecture.”
Well-knownPastor of Bethel Church Redding, California, Bill Johnson, has encouraged people to submit stories of their answered prayer saying, "I want to encourage everyone to take your answered prayer and send it to Eternal Wall so that the people of God, all over the world, can be encouraged by what's happened in your life."
For more information or interviews please contact Gareth Russell at Jersey Road PR. e: gareth@jerseyroad.co.uk
For more information about Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer please visit:
Web: https://www.eternalwall.org.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eternalwalluk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EternalWallUK/
To find out more, or donate to the Crowdfunder, please visit: crowdfunder.co.uk/eternalwall
About Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer
Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer is a project to build a Christian landmark in a prominent location in the heart of the UK between the M6 and the M42 motorways near Birmingham. This piece of public art will be made of one million bricks, each one representing an answered prayer shared by an individual from our nation, over history and by the current generation. It will be a national landmark declaring ‘Jesus is alive, He listens, He answers’.
The vision of this project is to create a nation of storytellers; to transform the culture of the country, to become one where stories of the miraculous can become part of the nation’s consciousness; and that
Christians are emboldened to share their personal answered prayer stories. There are three elements to this vision being realised.
We wish to…
…preserve the Christian heritage of the nation
…ignite a faith for prayer on a national level
…proclaim Jesus to the country.
The structure will tower 51.5m into the skyline and will be seen by over 500k journeys per week, with expected visitor numbers of 300k per annum.
About Richard Gamble
Richard is the visionary behind the colossal project to build Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer. Having the idea in 2004, he felt the go ahead to launch in 2015, and for the past five years Richard has shared the incredible concept all around the UK, rallying people behind the belief that one individual’s answered prayer can be another person’s hope.
After becoming a Christian in 1990 Richard studied at bible college and then worked for British Gas before leaving the big corporate world to make his mark in entrepreneurship, co-founding both a software business and a marketing consultancy. With a keen love of football, he became CEO of Sports Chaplaincy UK, and was former chaplain of Leicester City Football Club (before they were famous and won the Premiership!) Richard lives in Leicestershire and is married with three children.
About the design
Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer takes the shape of an infinity loop called a Möbius strip. When the title of ‘The Wall’ was first introduced as a name for the project, people raised concerns about how this might have connotations of a dividing and separating structure. However, this interpretation is far from the case. The Möbius strip is unorientable, it has neither beginning nor end, and it can never be classed as a static, finite wall. Created by taking a ribbon, giving it a half-twist, and then re-joining the ends to form a loop, the shape is essentially a single surface running fluently in an ever-connecting line. As a result, a person can never be on the outside or the inside of it. For Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, the continuous nature of the band represents how God is always listening and always answering our prayers. After a global competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2016, this winning Möbius strip concept was put forward by Paul Bulkeley, from Snug Architects in Southampton.