In our November issue, we explore some of the most awe-inspiring places around the UK (our own Seven Wonders of the World). One was the Kelpies, which you can read about below. And, if you’re inspired to visit more giant sculptures, we’ve put together a list of a few that are on our bucket list.
On the unremarkable stretch of the M9 between Edinburgh and Glasgow, just close to junction 6 for Falkirk, there’s a sight to lift even the most dreich day. Two giant horse heads: The Kelpies. They’re named after Scottish mythology’s shapeshifting water beasts, but each sinew and twitch is based on two real Clydesdale horses, Duke and Baron. 30-metre tall gatekeepers to a Forth and Clyde Canal extension, they honour the hard-worked horses once used to pull barges. To really appreciate their magnificence, approach on foot, through Helix Park and crane your neck to acknowledge the wonder of their construction, all 27,000 steel pieces of it. Seven years after their completion, they’re firmly rooted in their landscape, a point of local pride. Guardians, as their sculptor Andy Scott describes them – hopefully for many years to come.
If you fancy seeing some awe-inspiringly big art, you might also like to visit one of the following...
The Angel of the North
We must kick of the list with the most famous large sculpture in Britain, Anthony Gormley’s Angel, which spreads its wings across a hill at Low Eighton, overlooking the A1 and A167 at 20 metres tall. The body is based on a cast of Gormley’s own body.
Messenger
Located outside the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, Joseph Hillier’s 7m tall statue is based on a pose by one cast member, Nicola Kavanagh, about to run on stage during a production of Othello in 2014. It’s the largest sculpture made in the UK using the ‘lost wax’ method.
Verity, Ilfracombe
Damien Hirst’s Verity stands (more than 20 metres tall) looking out over the Bristol Channel, at the entrance to Ilfracombe harbour. Verity is a pregnant woman, holding a sword and the scales of justice, standing on a pile of law books. It’s on loan to the town for 20 years.
Horse of the South
Nic Fiddian-Green’s Horse of the South is a giant horse’s head that stands just by the A3 near the Esher bypass turn off, as a protest against urban sprawl in the area. He hopes one day to install a giant horse in the South Downs to rival Gormley’s Angel of the North.
The Giant Spoon
You wouldn’t think a giant spoon would be hard to find, but this sculpture on the edge of a field in Cramlington, Northumberland, takes a bit of hunting down. The dessert spoon is 4.5m tall and was installed as part of the Eat for England campaign to encourage people to get out into the countryside.
Irwell Valley Sculpture Trail
Winding from Bacup to Salford Quays, this is the largest sculpture trail in England, which includes 28 sculptures of all shapes and sizes, including a huge giant picture frame so you can be a work of art yourself.
Terris Novalis
Created by Tony Cragg on what was once the site of the Stanhope and Tyne Railway Line at Consett, are a 19th-century theodolite and an engineer’s level, 20 times life size and created from stainless steel. They’re a nod to the area’s industrial history.
Dream
This 20m tall head on the site of the old Sutton Manor Colliery in St Helen’s, Merseyside, is coated in white Spanish dolomite, intended as a contrast to the coal that was once mined here. The woman has her eyes closed in peaceful meditation.
Newton, After Blake
Fittingly perched outside the British Library, Edoardo Paolozzi’s bronze scultpure stands 3.7m high and is mounted on a high plinth, all the better to look out at all the readers and scholars coming and going from the library.
Silvas Capitalis
A giant head made from larch is not what you’d <expect> to find in a forest, but this one, located alongside the Lakeside Way in Kielder, sort of looks at home. You can clamber inside it and up the stairs to the first floor to look out through its eyes and listen to the sounds of the forest through its ears.
Read about the rest of our Seven Marvels of Britain in the November issue. And we’d love to hear about any of your own Marvels of Britain. Leave us a note in the comments below.
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