With contributions from Cirencester Archaeological & Historical Society, Cirencester Civic Society, members & friends
The concept of ‘public art’, or today we might better call it ‘community art’, includes a wide variety of forms of presentation and in different materials, but all with a common theme of exciting public interest, whether for the short term or for a longer impact. By its very nature often ephemeral, it can also quite easily be overlooked, especially when the initiative moves on to something new.
Cirencester does have a good body of community art, essentially outdoor by nature, in addition to its wealth of indoor gallery and exhibition spaces. At any one time New Brewery Arts, the Corinium Museum, or the Bingham Gallery plus a number of private galleries might be having a show. Plenty of options to choose from, but unfortunately there seems to be no Public Art Trail leaflet or on-line option pulling all this together (Cheltenham has a very good one) and this is a gap which could be filled.
The town’s wonderful architectural heritage is of course part of all this, a study in itself.
Some features are commemorative. An excellent period piece is the Jubilee Lamp from 1935/36 in Catalpa Square (a hardly used name) in Dyer Street. But how many people stop to read its plaque and note its significance?
There are a number of good examples of modern public art as most people probably think of it around the town. Each tends to celebrate a local or national event, and so belongs to the time frame when it was relevant. Years later they sometimes need an occasional bit of help to remain well presented and relevant to what is going on around them. Maintenance, including labelling, can be challenging.
The earliest is probably The Prophet statue, made in concrete by the Austrian sculptor Willi Soukop, which dates from the 1960s. It has recently survived the redevelopment of Leaholme flats in The Avenue as the Grosvenor Place project. It has a fascinating story, thankfully well recorded and with a website.
A couple of projects from the late 1990s reflect contemporary trends and commissioned from public or private funds. ‘The Ram’ forms a centrepiece (and a seating area) at the heart of the commercial Woolmarket off Dyer Street. A bold bronze sculpture executed by Jill Tweed FRBS, it was unveiled by writer Joanna Trollope, then a local resident, in April 1997, and funded by the project developer. It may have settled into its landscape quite comfortably now, but it still raises periodic comment as to whether the ram truly depicts the local and rare Cotswold breed!
In the grounds of Cirencester Hospital at the Querns, overlooking the town but alas easy to miss, is another work in local stone. By Stroud-based sculptor Jamie Vans and simply entitled ‘Family’, it shows a couple in a close embrace as if protecting each other from outside dangers including problems of health and welfare. Local authority funding came via the Art in the Community initiative, one of the few locally to benefit. Go and seek it out.
In the last decade or so, things have definitely looked up as a number of projects have promoted art installations at their core. The key architectural story has been the commissioning via Project BlackJack of two replacement sculptures, this time in bronze replacing their stone predecessors, one each in the niches in the church tower overlooking the Market Place. They represent St John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary, are the work of Rodney Munday, and of all these projects probably created the greatest amount of public participation and debate.
Two other commemorative projects have also left their mark. In 2014 ‘The Feathered Aviator’, a work by wire sculptor Celia Smith, was erected on the facade of New Brewery Arts to mark 100 years since the start of the First World War. In the Abbey Grounds the 900th anniversary of the founding of the Augustinian Abbey of St Mary in 1017 was celebrated by the Abbey 900 project. Its legacy including a monastic garden recreation is maturing nicely; most visitors will notice the two carved wooden statues representing an Abbot and Canon.
Gaining a high public profile since it started as the Cirencester March Hare Festival in 2013, the Hare Festival Way now provides a permanent trail alongside the River Churn linking Cirencester’s green spaces. Free-standing fibre-glass hare sculptures can be found at intervals, highly coloured and easily spotted. Launched in 2016, the trail set a trend as a multi-partnership project. A Cotswold-wide Hare Trail followed and became a fund-raiser supporting projects within the AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).
Relatively underpromoted but studied and enjoyed at close quarters since 2018 as a feature of the open-space Market Place is Sophie Ryder’s bronze ‘Pink Lady Dancing with Big Brown Dog’ dating from 2000. It catches the eye. So too the most recent project, large wildlife sculptures from various artists now displayed and presented for maximum effect in the Grade-1 listed Cirencester Park’s Estate Rides, accessible from the town centre.
David Viner
[Willi Soukop and The Prophet]
[Project Blackjack]
https://www.gfirstlep.com/news/see-the-mad-march-hares-of-cirencester
[Cirencester March Hare Festival]
[Cirencester Park]
Support Cirencester’s principal heritage societies and their event programmes: Archaeological & Historical Society (www.cirenhistory.org.uk) and Civic Society (www.ccsoc.org.uk), which runs a programme of Town Walks in the season plus pre-booked for small groups. See the Society’s website or email Rob Tuttle info@townwalkscirencester.uk or robtuttle@btinternet.com
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