‘The idea of building Britain’s largest Christian landmark wasn’t mine – it came to me from God’

‘Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer’ will be twice the height of ‘Angel of the North’ and seen by more than 500,000 every day. Alex Ross speaks to the man behind it – and the donor who spent £30m to make this ambitious plan a reality

An artist’s impression of ‘Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer’, to be located near Coleshill in North Warwickshire (Snug Architects)

According to the Bible, it was when God had had enough of human wickedness and violence that he sent a message to Noah, telling him to build an ark.

For Richard Gamble, his message from the Lord Almighty came as he lumbered through the village of Burbage – carrying a wooden cross – on a 77-mile tour of Leicestershire to spread the word of Jesus.

“I felt a flash through my mind from God of an idea to build a wall of a million bricks by a motorway,” Mr Gamble, aged 56, said. “Every brick [was to] represent an answered prayer, a testimony, a miracle. It was the beginning.”

It was an ambitious idea, even knocked down as “utter bonkers” by some. But after a decade of praying about it, he decided to quit his job to make the vision a reality, kickstarted by another message from God, that there was some “heavenly land prepared”.

“You go deeper and it gets weirder,” the former Leicester City Football Club chaplain told The Independent, as he revealed he was sent a map with a circle showing the monument’s destined location from a woman who received it from God, while brushing her teeth.

Now, after a challenging decade spent overcoming crowdfunding targets, planning obstacles and spiralling costs, work has finally started on the 167ft-high loop-shaped monument, to be made out of glistening white concrete.

Richard Gamble received the idea for the monument from God while carrying a wooden cross on a 77-mile tour of Leicestershire in 2004 (The Independent/Alex Ross)

Cast in 188 segments in Portugal and measuring two and a half times the height of the Angel of the North, the sculpture, to be called Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, will be unveiled in 2028, at a cost of £40m.

On Wednesday, the long-awaited turf-cutting ceremony took place. Around 200 smartly dressed people gathered expectantly under a cloudy sky on a farmer’s field wedged between the M6 and M42 just east of Birmingham.

Some gasped while others applauded as a drone was sent up into the sky to illustrate the colossal height of the sculpture. Architect Paul Bulkeley, standing on a small stage, boasted it would be 12 double-decker buses high. “Your eyes will be drawn heavenward,” he said.

Each of the one million bricks will hold an answered prayer, which will be viewed via augmented reality on mobile phones by visitors, said Michelle Heritage, whose job it is to collect and vet prayers. With 125,000 collected so far, she appealed to the small crowd for help to find more.

Then, an emotional Mr Gamble took to the stage, at one point welling up while assessing the magnitude of the work so far. “For those 7,800-odd days it’s been a dream, but today it’s a reality,” he said. “This is going to be built, a national landmark about Jesus, in the heart of the nation.”

Spades were handed out and a countdown sounded before the first cuts were made into the muddy earth. Among those smiling for pictures was Conservative peer Robert Edmiston, whose company IM Group has weighed in with more than £30m of the cost.

The company donated the parcel of land, which is also next to the London-Birmingham HS2 line and Birmingham International airport. It means the monument will be seen by more than half a million people each day.

Lord Edmiston, who set up evangelical charity Christian Vision in 1988, bemoaned the country’s Christian heritage “sometimes getting lost” and called for a return to the religion’s values.

According to the last census, the proportion of people in England and Wales who described themselves as Christian fell from 59.3 per cent in 2011 to 46.2 per cent in 2021.

The project was made possible thanks to the £30m donation from Robert Edmiston’s IM Group (The Independent/Alex Ross)

Talking on stage, Lord Edmiston said: “This is a strategic spot, it is right in the centre of England, and that’s where I want to see God; in our nation, right at the centre, because without his blessing we all have lots of problems.”

He added: “I’m certain this place... when people come here and hear of other people’s prayers, they will be inspired to pray for themselves, pray for their friends and relatives.

“What a wonderful thing, as well, for us to have the chance to do something that will be generational. I’m hoping this monument will stand for hundreds of years and will be a statement to the nation, in the centre of the nation.”

More money still needs to be found. There are plans for a visitor centre, car park and landscaped gardens, costing just shy of £6m. An online crowdfunder sits at more than £40,000 with rewards offered for donations, including T-shirts, flasks and construction hats.

Now work has started, newly appointed project chief executive Ian Bullock said he sensed there would be momentum in donations coming in. “People will be able to see it’s actually being built now,” he said.

There were cheers as spades were dug into the ground for the first time to mark the start of work on the monument at the site, surrounded by motorway (The Independent/Alex Ross)

With 30 per cent of Birmingham residents describing themselves as Muslim, would other faiths be included?

“It’s a Christian faith monument,” said Mr Bullock, former chief executive of the Royal College of Physicians. “We respect other faiths, but this is about declaring Jesus and his place in the Christian faith tradition of this country.

“So whilst we don’t want it to be divisive, it is uniquely about that.”

When North Warwickshire council considered a planning application, members raised concerns over the monument not being multifaith. But chief executive Steve Maxey, also at the ceremony, said it was not the role of councillors to determine the faiths it should be for.

Mr Maxey was keen to highlight the boost in tourism, with an inland surfing park to also be built nearby. “It will be a national monument that will open up land to the public while providing a valuable tourism asset to the region,” he said.

The monument will be built in North Warwickshire, but sits as close to the county’s market town of Coleshill as the Kingshurst and Chelmsley Wood wards of Solihull, which both have high levels of deprivation.

A fundraising target of £5.7m has been set to pay for a visitor centre and gardens around the monument (Snug Architects)

In Chelmsley Wood, where a third of the working-age population are claiming universal credit, locals in the shopping centre complain about the number of betting shops and poor healthcare. Most were unaware of plans for the Christian monument on their doorstep.

Ricardo Fumagalli, 63, said: “I think it’s a good idea as long as the money is coming from the right people and it’s accessible for all.” Rachel Saunders, in her sixties, said: “I’m a bit shocked over how much it is costing, but I think it is a good thing to be upholding the Christian faith and hopefully inspiring more people to join.”

Colin Shelton, 54, said: “With so many people in need of mental health support, this [the monument] could be the answer to some problems.”

Deb Humphreys, 59, said: “Forty million pounds could be spent somewhere else on something more important right now, like helping homeless off the streets or giving more to the NHS.”

But Mr Gamble said the monument will produce value through the hope it will give to millions of people.

“Christians in this country give about a billion [pounds] into helping the poor, helping those on the streets, trying to stop modern slavery and all those things,” he said. “But if we don’t tell the nation why we believe, why we do all those things, what is the love of Jesus that motivates us, I think we do the nation a disservice.”