In front of more than 10,000 people in Warwickshire, an elegant wooden memorial for Britain’s COVID-19 victims was set alight.

A group of seven torchbearers, including a reverend and some of the structure’s workers, were carefully chosen to light the edifice on fire.

Sanctuary, a 20-meter-high wooden monument, was destroyed by fire just a week after it was unveiled.

It was a memorial to individuals who died after being diagnosed with coronavirus.

The memorial was designed by independent arts firm Artichoke, who developed Sanctuary, and artist David Best, who is known for large-scaled meticulously carved constructions during the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert.

It was erected in Bedworth’s Miners’ Welfare Park in partnership with local residents in North Warwickshire.

Thousands of people have visited the structure since last week, leaving letters and mementos devoted to loved ones who have passed away.

10,000 more people gathered to see it burn “in a cathartic moment of rebirth, recuperation, and regeneration,” according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Best and his colleagues were later given special commendation by the borough council for their community service, which was handed on Saturday afternoon by Councilor Jeff Clarke, the mayor of Bedworth and Nuneaton.

“Sanctuary was conceived in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic. We wanted to mark the nation’s losses in an everyday place with everyday people going about their daily lives,” Mr. Best said.

“The thousands of visitors who have streamed into the memorial and left messages and the thousands more who came to watch it burn tonight have shown how necessary it was and how much people wanted a national memorial to embrace and acknowledge the grief and isolation that COVID imposed on us all.”