Volunteers from across Knowsley, including residents and the business community, working alongside French artist Olivier Grossetȇte.
The project was funded by a grant from Arts Council England, supported by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Global Streets.
Hundreds of people came together to celebrate the amazing Lost Castles project which took place at Knowsley Safari during the summer of 2018. The project promoted team working and community spirit, bringing young and old together to work on a single goal – to build a monumental castle-inspired structure castle simply out of cardboard and cellotape. The inspiration for Knowsley’s design came from Elsinore Castle from one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Hamlet.
Hundreds of people took part in the construction of the project, with thousands coming along to see the finished castle. There was a real sense of community spirit and pride around what they had achieved by working together.
Lost Castles was the first ever event to take place across all six of the Liverpool City Region areas and was named Community Event of the Year 2018 at the Liverpool Echo Awards.
“I took my three children to three different workshops and they were all superb. When we came to build the castle, it was an amazing experience. It was our castle that we built as a community. It felt great to be doing something different that I wouldn’t normally do and me and the children feel so proud and privileged to have been a part of the Lost Castles project.”
“Fantastic project bringing this piece of art to life with the help of so many volunteers.”
“People from all over the community have come together to help make this a realisation.”
“The more hands the better! The community has been its brilliant and I’m so proud to be part of it.”
“It’s good that we can all come together and come as a community to help to make something so great.”
