A large piece of stone which came from Marbury Hall was the inspiration to create a stone bench in the Rose Garden. The stone was moved into the Rose Garden using the tractor, where volunteers mounted it on two stone blocks.
FoAM commissioned local stone carver Andrew Worthington of Kelsall to carve the bench using, moths as a theme.
The bench was carved in situ in the Rose Garden over a few weeks during spring 2022. Passers by were welcomed to view the work taking place whilst Andrew was on site.
The carved images of moths depicted on the bench include a Beautiful Marbled Moth. This very attractive species of moth occurs in mainland Europe and North Africa, and was first recorded in Britain in August 2004, when an individual was trapped in Dorset.
This species had rarely been found north of the South Coast until Liz Bentham opened her moth trap on 10th August 2020 to find it contained a totally unexpected moth for Cheshire, which she identified as a Beautiful Marbled Moth.
The bench carving was made possible as a result of a collection made in memory of Liz Bentham, who had operated the moth trap at Marbury for many years..