A VIOLIN MAKER has crafted three violins from a tree in the grounds of a shell-shock treatment hospital in honour of three renowned First World War poets.

Steve Burnett used a branch from a sycamore tree at Craiglockhart military war hospital, where Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were treated, to make the instruments.

He also recently completed a violin in honour of poet Robert Graves, who met Owen and Sassoon in Edinburgh.

The three violins were played together for the first time on Friday evening at Baberton Golf Club in Edinburgh as a plaque was unveiled to mark 100 years since the three poets met there. Burnett hopes the instruments will serve as envoys for peace and reconciliation through the power of music.

He said: “I hope that as time goes on, the voices of these violins through the messages of these poets will be a beacon of hope.

“The violins will be there to spread the word of hope and peace and harmony.”

Burnett made the first violin in 2014 to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. He began work on the Siegfried Sassoon violin earlier this year, using wood from the same branch, to mark the centenary of the first meeting between the two poets.