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FOX HILL WHALE
Client - Vistry Partnerships for Guinness Partnerships
This is a two-part Whale sculpture, designed to look like it is swimming and cresting through the land. I have left some of the edges rough to represent sea-spray. This also allow the viewer to observe that the pieces are made from single blocks of quarry-hewn stone.
The site is nearby to Jawbone Hill, known locally as Whalejaw Hill, which got its name from a pair of whales’ jawbones which spanned the road high enough for a loaded hay cart to be driven through. They are said to have marked the route that whalebone “stays” took from the east coast to the textile factories in Manchester, where they were used in the corsetry industry.
It has drifted a bit into folklore, so we have brought the Whale back!
Poem by Beverley Ward
THE FOX HILL WHALE
Did you hear the tale of the Fox Hill Whale?
She swam up the Don and decided to stay.
Her jaw made an arch on Jawbone Hill
Out in the landscape, can you see her still?
Her mouths the bend of the Cote D'Oughtibridge.
Her backbone the path along Birley Edge.
Listen she swims like wind through the leaves.
A tail flicking out of the Spring Wood trees.
Her blowhole gave name to Spout House Hill.
She powered the forge in the Moss & Gamble Mill.
The west Nab Mast still picks up her song
As she rises from earth, calling us home.
By Beverley Ward