About

OpenBenches is designed and built by Terence and Elizabeth Eden.

There are blue plaques to commemorate the famous and influential figures of the past.
For everyone else, there are memorial benches.
A quiet reminder of the people gone but not forgotten.
A spot to rest your weary legs and give silent thanks to “Alice – who loved this park”.

OpenBenches.org is a site dedicated to those benches. Take a photo of a bench’s plaque and upload it to the site. It will automatically be added to the map.

Background

We’ve been contributing to OpenPlaques for a few years – but couldn’t find anything for benches.

The wonderful George Julian runs https://memorialbench.wordpress.com/ – but the location data isn’t open.

OpenStreetMap has a list of (nearly) every bench in the world – but when we started this project they didn’t record whether there is an inscription on it.

We tried to send a Freedom of Information request to Westminster Council for a list of their benches – but they don’t keep that information.

So now it is time to crowd-source the data! We’ve grabbed some Open Data from Bath – who provide a list of memorial benches and their locations.

How To Help

Thanks!

T&E

16 Replies to “About”

  1. Would be great if you could add a new picture to an existing bench. For example add a view if there’s only a long shot. Maybe even add extra views at different seasons or time of day.

    Reply ↓

    • +1 for this and I really like the idea of chronological list of views from a particular bench.
      I was originally thinking it would only be of interest to see the view from the bench change over time, but on reflection it would be good to see all of the images change with time.
      I think the default view on page load should be the most recent images, to help others who may be looking for it, locate the bench.

      Reply ↓

    • If it is an identical picture, it will be automatically rejected. At the moment, we don’t have duplicate detection for different people adding the same bench. Pull requests welcome!

      Reply ↓

    • Hi Stephen. We let people upload anonymously – you don’t need to register. You only need to do so if you want to edit/delete or have your name associated with a bench.
      Running a registration process is really hard – we don’t want to be responsible for storing your password or email address.
      If I get time, I might add some more registration providers (Facebook, GitHub, etc) but I don’t have the time or skill to make a registration process.
      If you do, and want to help, pop over to our GitHub page and you can suggest how we do it.
      Thanks for adding benches.
      T

      Reply ↓

  5. I’m a relative of Aida Geneen – she’s one of your featured benches. I could provide information about her and her famous son (who provided the bench) but I’d be interested to know who uploaded it onto your site, as it’s probably another family member that I don’t know about.

    Reply ↓

    • We’d love to know more, and you can leave a comment on the bench. The photo was taken by Elizabeth, the co-founder of the site. We were wandering through London when we found it.

      Reply ↓

  6. Hello,

    I’ve just come across your website after doing a Google search of my mother’s name:

    https://openbenches.org/bench/4445

    It’s lovely that her bench is available for people to see online. I just wondered if you have any information regarding who uploaded a photo of the bench? I’m just curious if it was a friend or family member.

    Thanks,

    Geoff

    Reply ↓

    • Hi Geoff, I’m so pleased that you found the bench. Sadly, we don’t have any information on who uploaded that particular photo. If you click on “Nearby Benches” it looks like someone took photos of all the benches in that area.
      All the best.

      Reply ↓

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