The UN’s foremost expert on land mine clearance, a trailblazing Guyanese novelist, founders of the Rural Life Living Museum, a Lord of the Rings and Narnia illustrator and an internationally acclaimed botanist are to be included on the Notable Names of Farnham wall.

Farnham Town Council has signed off the latest additions to the plaques celebrating famous and influential residents of Farnham adorning the wall of Sainsbury’s in South Street, as well as provisional dates for their unveiling ceremonies.

The first will be dedicated to the founders of the Rural Life Living Museum, Madge and Henry Jackson MBE, on April 24 to mark the 40th anniversary of the setting up of the museum Charitable Trust.

The next plaque will be revealed on June 26 during Armed Forces week, dedicated to Brigadier Paddy Blagden CBE. Paddy served 35 years in the British Army and ran the United Nations’ de-mining office from 1992 to 1995. He also served as Mayor of Farnham in 2013/14.

Distinguished illustrator of many classic works of fiction including Lord of the Rings and Narnia, Pauline Baynes, will then be honoured on October 20, being the 75th anniversary of the first illustrated JRR Tolkien book Farmer Giles of Ham.

Another Rowledge resident, botanist Alan Mitchell, has been recommended for inclusion sometime in 2025, the 30th anniversary of his death. Mitchell almost single-handedly measured every notable tree in the British Isles and founded the Tree Register of the British Isles, which held records of more than 100,000 individual notable trees at the time of his death.

A fourth plaque will be unveiled to Guyanese author Edgar Austin Mittelholzer on May 6, 2025, marking 60 years since his death. Mittelholzer has been described as "the most prolific novelist to be produced by the Caribbean", and was the earliest novelist from the region to establish himself in Europe.