OpenBenches

[Kim]

https://openbenches.org/

This seems non-specifically lovely.  Something to keep an eye out for while you're on a long bike ride, maybe?

[Wobbly John]

Nice. It’s got the one dedicated to a former colleague of mine.

Another former colleague did an art installation project, putting humorous dedication plaques on the plain benches in Ely, such as “Albert Briggs Cambridgeshire’s worst darts player. Forever missed.”

If they we still there, we could have added them.

[Regulator]

I’ll add all the one from the village - nearly every bench has a memorial on it. 

[robgul]

There's one in the park in Redditch dedicated to one of my late cycle club friends . . . it also refers to CTC & Sustrans but we'll overlook that!

[rogerzilla]

The Miles Kington one is quite famous.

[Tim Hall]

Nice. It’s got the one dedicated to a former colleague of mine.

Another former colleague did an art installation project, putting humorous dedication plaques on the plain benches in Ely, such as “Albert Briggs Cambridgeshire’s worst darts player. Forever missed.”

If they we still there, we could have added them.

There was a series of plaques around Horsham earlier this year, attached to random bits of street funiture.  Like this:


A work of genius.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I can't work out if it's got my favourite sitting-on-for-reading-in-the-summer bench up on the Downs; there's nothing it its place but I'm not sure how accurate the locations are. And it would be quite a task to record all the memorial benches on the Downs!

Rather a lovely idea to have a website for them though.

[bhoot]

 

I can't work out if it's got my favourite sitting-on-for-reading-in-the-summer bench up on the Downs; there's nothing it its place but I'm not sure how accurate the locations are.

Some of my local benches are shown in the river Thames. This may of course be accurate if vandals have uprooted them and chucked them in.

[citoyen]

A work of genius.

Would have been better if they could spell Aloysius correctly.

[Canardly]

Nice find Kim.

[Basil]

I've just searched for the 'In memory of <name> who hated this park and everyone in it.' bench and failed to find it.
Perhaps it wasn't real.

[spesh]

I've just searched for the 'In memory of <name> who hated this park and everyone in it.' bench and failed to find it.
Perhaps it wasn't real.

"The plaque dedicated to Roger Bucklesby regularly goes viral in London Facebook groups - and while it is real, the story behind it is not what you'd expect"

In fact, Roger Bucklesby isn't a real person. He's a fictional character dreamt up by author Jamie Maslin, who had the plaque installed the day before he emigrated to Australia. The bench was first implemented in September 2013, according to a Buzzfeed report from that year.

Buzzfeed decided not to reveal which North London park the bench resides in, to prevent a local council from removing it. Maslin worried the sarcastic plaque could be considered vandalism given official plaques cost £800 to install.

Maslin said the character of Roger was born after a friend told him he was being a "whinger" and described the character as "irritable and Victorian". He added: "Old Roger lifted my spirits and soon we were working on his backstory – a prolific author but never published, getting bitterer and bitterer with every failed submission.

"At first he came to the park for inspiration but eventually he began to resent the place for encouraging him to chase his dreams. It gave us such a good laugh (and cheered me up immensely) that we decided to get the plaque made.

"We had no plans for this to turn into an internet hit, we just hoped the occasional passerby would see it and have a giggle. It seems we've done plenty of that."

https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/real-story-behind-londons-funniest-23414675

(ETA - found in a matter of seconds by using the search term funny memorial benches)

[hellymedic]

A work of genius.

Would have been better if they could spell Aloysius correctly.

Yebbut I read his name as 'Atrocious' and wondered if this misspelling was designed to cause this...

[Wobbly John]

Nice. It’s got the one dedicated to a former colleague of mine.

Another former colleague did an art installation project, putting humorous dedication plaques on the plain benches in Ely, such as “Albert Briggs Cambridgeshire’s worst darts player. Forever missed.”

If they we still there, we could have added them.

I’ve just found his webpage about the bench dedication/intervention artwork: https://www.mackmathod.com/absurd-interventions