Pamela Woods was commissioned to design and create a Shinto Garden for The Alliance of Religions and Conservation for a celebration of their work and The Queen's Royal Jubilee in November 1999.

The garden was installed in the Undercroft, an ancient room with a beautiful vaulted ceiling below the Royal Banqueting Hall in Whitehall, London.

The garden was designed to set just the right atmosphere for the spirit of the event, visitors stepping from the busy streets of London would walk through the garden and begin to sense the serenity of a wilderness woodland in Japan and the reason for the event - the celebration of creation and of nature itself.

Bamboos, myrtles, acacias, trocadendrons, mahonias, ferns and mosses filled the room with winding pathways leading to two pools containing bubbling woodland springs.

An extraordinary timber Torri archway (created by James Showers) marked the entrance under which visitors walked as they moved into the garden.

This garden, or rather garden installation took 4 months to research and design, 36 hours to install, was viewed for 12 hours and then deconstructed in another 6 hours! 

It has found a permanent home in Gloucestershire where it is slowly being established in an English Woodland setting at the Matara centre, Kingscote Park. It's purpose here is to be part of a garden expressing the diversity of the worlds spiritual traditions.