A novel design competition initiated by Chichester stone specialists CWO and sponsored by the City of London and Albion Stone culminated with the Lord Mayor of London unveiling the winning entry produced in Portland limestone in December. The competition was intended to make architectural students think about using stone in three dimensions to make the most of its inherent solidity and the opportunities of light and shadow offered by it in that way, rather than just as a two-dimensional cladding for walls and floors.

The competition was to design a bench that had to be produced from a single, specified block of Portland limestone donated by Albion Stone for the competition. The winning design was produced by two students of the University of Edinburgh, Donna Walker and Samuel Dawkins, who, although they were studying in Scotland, both come from the south and were familiar with the Rotunda Gardens in Smithfield, home of the famous meat market, where the finished bench was erected.

The surfaces of the Whitbed stone, with its certain amount of fossil inclusion, are smooth in some places, tooled in others, and the seat zig-zags its way through the uprights like a river flowing under bridges. Inscriptions have been cut into the stone by hand, for which CWO had the help of the Worthing lettercutting studio of Bob Jolly. The main inscription is taken from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and describes Smithfield. There is also a poem about St Paul\'s.

The bench was made by CWO\'s five apprentices, it always having been CWO director Bernard Burns\' intention that the piece should provide training for his young masons. They worked under the direction of apprentice captain Carl Nellor, with the inscription giving them a chance to learn about letter layout and cutting from the Bob Jolly studio. Three of the apprentices went to the garden to help construct the finished bench. Producing it had taken a total of 400 man hours on the saws and banker. Erecting it took a further five days, with the young architects joining the stonemasonry apprentices on three of the days.