The Walks Park Solar System
Joint School Community Artwork
The Broadway, King's Lynn
In July 2013 a striking mosaic solar system was set into The Walks, King’s Lynn, along the Broadway. Commissioned by the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk and designed by Carolyn Ash, the work brought seven local primary schools into orbit around a shared creative project. Each school took responsibility for a single planet, guided through the process in a day-long workshop. What emerged was far more than a civic commission; it became a collaborative landmark, blending science, art, and community pride.
Carolyn ensured the children’s mosaics were finished to withstand the weather, in spite of pigeons and lime trees, carefully grouting each one before they were set into a frame marking the planets’ order from the Sun. As a personal gesture Carolyn gifted the Moon, completing the journey from the Sun, and from Mercury to Neptune. From its very first days the installation has invited people to stop, look, and wander through a miniature cosmos beneath the trees.
From Classroom
to Cosmos
The project transformed classrooms into arts studios where pupils worked directly. Rather than presenting a rigid template, Carolyn encouraged imagination within the framework of planetary form—so Venus shone in soft tones, Saturn gained its rings, and Mars burned with terrestrial reds. Many of the children had never touched mosaic before, yet the results spoke of bold choices and unselfconscious creativity.
What mattered most was the sense of ownership: pupils could point to a planet in the park and say, “we made that.” The knowledge of astronomy became bound up with tactile experience, leaving an imprint as durable as the mosaics themselves.
Howard Junior School
Shards of Colour, Worlds of Wonder
Every planet was pieced together from durable ceramic, glass, metal, mirror, and trinkets chosen to hold colour through years of sun and rain. While Carolyn’s technical skill ensured strength and weatherproofing, the palette reflected both the recognisable tones of the solar system and the children’s playful invention. Saturn’s rings shimmer, Neptune swirls in deep blue, while the smaller inner planets hold bright, contrasting hues. Together they form a teaching tool and a vivid artwork, simultaneously accurate and expressive.
St. Martha's Primary School
Orbits of Appreciation
In the decade since its installation, the solar system has become steadfast in the life of King’s Lynn. Families use it as a route for exploration, children leap from one planet to another, and visitors pause to take photographs. Its presence continues to slide into everyday memory, a reminder of how collective efforts leave a permanent mark on a town’s character.
St. Michael's Academy
Eastgate Academy
Carolyn
St. Martha's Primary School
Howard Junior School
South Wooton Infant School
Southery Academy
Highgate Infant School
Hands that Hold the Heavens
Since 2023, the mosaic planets have been cared for by two extraordinary local residents, Chris and Marie, volunteering as part of the Friends of The Walks Park. With no budget and no expectation of recognition, they stepped forward out of generosity alone, giving their time and energy so the artwork continues to flourish. Their humility, dedication, and skill have made them as integral to the Solar System’s story as the children who first set the pieces in place.
Their commitment is a quiet form of patronage; a gift to the town as much as to the artwork itself. Alongside Carolyn’s design and organisation, and the children’s hands and imagination, Chris and Marie’s stewardship through the Friends of The Walks Park stands as a monument to community care. The Walks Park Solar System endures not only as public art, but as a living testament to collaboration, generosity, and guardianship.
Marie, Carolyn, and Chris