The Phoenix Awards Scheme is named after the mythical bird because it aims to create a renaissance of funerary art and cemetery design from the desolation that followed the growth of cremation.

The Phoenix Awards Scheme is a design competition for monumental gardens and memorials in their environment.

It is essentially for new ideas, getting away from routinely extending current patterns and systems that have resulted in banal rows of exposed, unstable, regimented and uniform upright slabs.

The Premier Award, sponsored by insurers Stoneguard, is for a Total Design Concept of monuments in their environment. This will earn the creator of the best design £1,000 plus a trophy. The runner up will receive £100 and the Olympia Metal Spinners\' annual trophy.

The competition will close for entries on 31 March 2004. For details contact: