UNITED KINGDOM — In the islands of Orkney, a memorial is planned for the victims of the witch trials. The site will open in 2019.

The inspiration for the project came when Professor Liv Willumsen of the University of Tromsø gave a talk at Orkney College in 2012. Professor Willumsen made a comparison between the witch trials in Scotland and those in Northern Norway, and she also mentioned a memorial to witches in Steilneset in Finnmark, Norway.

Over 100 people were tried in that region, an unusually high number for Norway, with 91 people being burned at the stake. The memorial, a 400 foot wooden structure was designed by artist Louise Bourgeois and architect Peter Zumthor. It opened in 2011, and it was the prestigious artist’s last major work.

Helen Woodsford-Dean, one of the people behind the new memorial, says that she knew that Orkney could not fund something on that major of a scale, but she was also aware of other memorials recently erected elsewhere in Scotland, such as Paisley and Forfar.