Staffordshire's £15.7m National Memorial Arboretum vision unveiled
This is what a new £15.7million visitor centre will look like when building work is finished at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
The artist impression shows the vast size of the new attraction at the 150-acre site in Alrewas, Staffordshire.
It is due to open in autumn 2016.
The centre is expected to attract 500,000 visitors per year and will include a spacious welcome area and a large exhibition space dedicated to the interpretation of remembrance.
There will also be a new restaurant and separate café at the Remembrance Centre which will open out on to a cloistered outdoor space called Heroes' Square.
A landscaped garden will lead visitors into the wider arboretum which is home to 30,000 maturing trees and has more than 300 memorials.
Sarah Montgomery, managing director of the arboretum, said: "The arboretum welcomes around 300,000 visitors each year, many of whom come as part of an organised group visit.
"The new Remembrance Centre will enable us to offer even more to our visitors and we are particularly excited about the planned exhibition area and audio guide which will really help people to understand the true significance of the Arboretum."
She added that just over £10m of the total £15.7m required had already been raised and the remainder would be made up from grants and further donations.
The arboretum is home to the iconic Armed Forces Memorial bearing the names of more than 16,000 Service personnel who have been killed on duty since the end of the Second World War.
Events planned to be staged there range from commemorations for important military anniversaries, such as Remembrance Sunday, Armistice Day and Armed Forces Day, to an outdoor cinema offer in the summer, and Christmas-themed events including gift fairs and a candlelit carol service.
There are also regular guided walks and buggy tours around the memorials and grounds and a daily Act of Remembrance in the Millennium Chapel.
Events and activities at the Arboretum will continue as normal while work is carried out on the new Remembrance Centre and visitors can view all the memorials apart from the Armed Forces Memorial, which is closed until autumn 2016.
