A HEADINGTON park will be the proud home of a new cast of characters from the fictional world of Narnia after a renowned wood carving artist began his transformation of an old cedar tree.

The Friends of Bury Knowles Park won funding recently from the 5p carrier bag levy at Tesco stores, securing £12,000 from in-store voting to go towards the makeover.

Oxford artist and wood sculptor Matt Cave was selected to complete the works and began his project last week starting with a carving of the famed lion Aslan.

Mr Cave, who has been a wood carver for the last 15 years, told the Oxford Mail: “Everybody responsible was very keen on having carvings from Narnia because of the link with CS Lewis here.

“And then having taken that decision we decided to make a lion.

“Everybody thinks of Aslan when they think of Narnia so it seemed right.”

The work for the project is currently ongoing and Mr Cave aims to have the lion would be finished by the end of the month, before adding that two other characters from the iconic books would also be joining the scene.

Mr Beaver and Mr Tumnus will join the line-up, he said, being immortalised in the wooden carving scene as part of a bench to be installed at the bank for visitors.

Headington councillor Roz Smith said that she was ‘absolutely delighted’ with the carvings.

She said: “It is an amazing piece of art and of course we have Narnia which is just fantastic and locally very important.

“We are absolutely delighted, it’s just amazing. It will make this park stand out from other parks.

“It’s a very important park and a large one, and we are just so lucky to have had this funding and to get Matt Cave.”

Cllr Smith said that the reaction from visitors and local residents has been overwhelmingly positive so far and lots of people were stopping to take a look at the carving.

She added: “Whenever I have been in the park people have stopped and been asking ‘what’s happening’, and they all absolutely love it so it has been really successful.”

Matt Cave previously sculpted the Story Book tree at the park depicting characters from Narnia as well as Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit.