An Okehampton-based craftsman showcased a handmade bench in an award-winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show last weekend (Friday and Saturday, May 23 and 24).

Mark Tungate has worked alongside the award-winning designer Tom Hoblyn to create Hospice UK’s Garden of Compassion which will celebrate the important role played by hospice gardens in end of life care across the UK.

Tom Hoblyn said: “The main feature of our garden is the wonderful, sinuous bench, which we’re calling the Together Bench. It’s going to weave right through the garden.”

Mark made the benches in his small workshop near Okehampton.

Each bench takes him around one month to create and is crafted from a fallen oak, which has been given new life to offer patients, their families and hospice staff a place on which to sit in the Garden of Compassion.

Mark said: “I made the prototype before Christmas so I haven’t been doing much else since then!”

He has made five benches for the Garden of Compassion which achieved a silver-gilt medal.

Tom said: “One thing that Mark and I discussed right from the beginning and we’ve managed to do it at every step of the garden, is to use reclaimed materials – so our boulders are coming from a field clearance in Durham – right through to this oak here, which is from a wind-felled tree.

“It’s quite poignant, because it was at the end of its lifecycle, and then we’ve taken it and given it new life by making it into a bench – so you have this whole circle of life thing going on, echoing what happens at a hospice.

The garden is fully funded by Project Giving Back which allows charitable organisations in the UK to exhibit a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.