Commissioned by Jane Murtagh, MA Curatorial Practice graduate and designed by second year Architecure Students from UCA, yesterday evening saw the opening of the Stokes Memorial Garden. The site, adjacent to the university’s Brewery Tap Project Space in the Creative Quarter of Folkestone, was transformed over the summer from a derelict plot  into a flexible and modular garden design to mark the site where 62 people lost their lives at a local greengrocers store destroyed in a bombing raid of Folkestone on 25th May 1917.

Opening the garden, Dr Terry Perk, Associate Head of School of Fine Art at UCA, welcomed guests and thanked the local community groups who had worked with the students to produce what he described as “a poignant and beautiful memorial.”

The garden will be open to the public at various times during the year, when the Brewery Tap Project Space is open for exhibitions.