The bench that looks like an open book

Inside Newcastle Cathedral there is a bench painted to look like an open book. The edges of the pages have been gilded. Across the covers sit colourful leaves, and on each leaf a name.

Julia Stafford painted it. She is a Newcastle illustrator who has done this kind of work for St Oswald’s Hospice before, on the Elmer and Shaun the Sheep trails. This brief, she told Chronicle Live in April, was different. “Design something to remember hundreds of loved ones, which was slightly nerve-wracking.” Peter Rabbit sits on the book. The names are handwritten, first and surname only, then varnished.

Three hundred and ninety-one people have a leaf. The dedications raised £13,820. Leaves were £30 each, with room for an extra gift at the till. The closing date was 21 June. You cannot add a name now.

The bench is part of Peter Rabbit: Tales on the Tyne, the hospice’s fourth public art trail, made with Wild in Art, The World of Peter Rabbit and Newcastle City Council. Since 15 July, 96 sculptures have been standing in streets and parks across Newcastle and North Tyneside. This one stayed indoors. Steph Edusei, the hospice’s chief executive, said they hoped visitors would take a moment, in a peaceful setting, for the people they miss. The Dean, Lee Batson, called it a privilege to host a place of remembrance.

Entry to the cathedral is free. Typical hours are eight until six on weekdays and eight until four at the weekend, though it is a church first. The bench is not on view during services. On Tuesday 8 September the nave is closed for a private event. The trail itself ends on Monday 14 September. After that the large rabbits go towards an auction. The book bench does not. It goes back to St Oswald’s, to one of the gardens in Gosforth.

St Oswald’s opened in July 1986 as a ten-bed unit on Regent Avenue. It is forty this year. Angela Egdell, director of care, walked in as a newly qualified nurse in that first team. The idea of the bench, she said, was to let names become part of a piece of art, and then to keep that art where the work actually happens.

Care is free to patients. In the year covered by the latest impact report, about 37 per cent of income came from public authorities, 30 per cent from donations and legacies, 32 per cent from trading. In March the ambulatory care service in the Focus on Living Centre ended after NHS funding for it stopped.