Sculptures and statuary

According to a survey recently conducted with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, there are nearly 700 sculptures in Norfolk and Suffolk which are publicly accessible.

They include monuments to famous men and women and racehorses, a long tradition of sculptural decoration on buildings, the ironwork gates of Sandringham, and the commissions across both counties which marked the millennium. In fact, almost a quarter of the sculptures are from 2000 onwards.

The survey is recorded in a digital database, completed in February 2008, which is supplemented by a map of Norfolk and Suffolk approximately indicating the location of some 680 public sculptures (be warned that, even with a broadband connection, this is slow to load).

Sculptures included in the survey include the two heraldic lions shown roaring with right paws raised which are set on stone piers flanking the steps up to Norwich City Hall.

The impressive life-size bronze statue of Maharajah Duleep Singh, unveiled in Thetford in 1998 is the first major piece of Sikh public art outside India. From becoming the last Maharajah of the Punjab at the age of 5, to the first Sikh settler in Britain at only 11, Duleep Singh bought Elveden Hall in 1863 as a country hunting estate. Although not open to the public, should you have watched Eyes Wide Shut you will have seen the splendour of the Hall (although you may have been focused elsewhere in that particular scene!).

Not listed, but predictably, are the six play sculptures, including a woodpecker, rabbit and squirrel, which can be found along the buggy- and child-friendly Giant Play Sculpture Trail starting from High Lodge Forest Centre in Thetford Forest Park.

As part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, which takes place each May, many sculptors and artists open their studios to the public as part of the Norfolk Open Studios event. Whilst a number of these studios are open at other times as well, participants include many which are generally not open to visitors, or which open only by appointment. Suffolk's equivalent, the aptly-named Suffolk Open Studios, takes place in June. For a glimpse of some of the work of the Norfolk artists take a look at the Norfolk artists' website.

The village of Bergh Apton (thats Burr) organises a Bergh Apton Sculpture Trail each year, when the villagers open up their gardens to the public to display, in sympathetic surroundings, sculptures created by artists who use the event to exhibit, promote and sell their art.

Not to be outdone, Great Ellingham, just down the road from White Lodge Farm, has an annual Teddy Bear Festival, when villagers adorn their gardens with as many as a hundred straw-stuffed bears on display to reward those who drive through or, better still, walk, around the village during the July festival.

But surely the most ephemoral sculptures in Norfolk are those that form the Norwich Ice Sculpture Trail which, very sensibly, takes place on a Sunday in December, when around 10 to 12 ice carvings are on display throughout the City (why not combine a visit with an hour or so on the ice skating rink on the Millennium Plain in the centre of Norwich or the indoor Ice Experience skating rink at the Norwich Sports Village?)