The stories behind some of city’s unusual sights
Nottingham has a rich cultural history, so you’d expect to find monuments that reflect it. GURJEET NANRAH goes walkabout to discover some of the quirkiest statues and sculptures in and around the city
A SEVEN-FOOT dragon and a dangling monkey are just two of the odd statues and sculptures found in Nottingham.
Particularly in the city centre where there are more eyes to catch, they have their own stories of how they came to be.
Most of the unconventional statues and sculptures in Nottingham were erected in more recent years.
Here are some of them.
SNEINTON DRAGON
Yes, there really is a dragon in Nottingham perched majestically on top of a post.
The Sneinton Dragon is a stainless steel sculpture by Nottinghamborn artist Robert Stubley.
It stands seven-feet high and with a 15-foot wingspan, lurking in the shade of the trees lining the junction of Sneinton Hermitage and Manvers Street.
Sneinton was one of the first small villages to be absorbed into the city of Nottingham in the 19th-century industrial boom, which saw the small village’s population rapidly grow. By the early 20th century, this overcrowding had caused the area to become a poor and unhealthy district.
The poverty was so great that a prominent Edwardian historian, Robert Mellors, attributed the population’s high infant mortality and disease rates to the predatory activity of the metaphorical monster “Slum”.
During a local urban regeneration in 2006, the city council proposed a piece of street art for the Sneinton community and conducted a survey to ask local residents what they would like.
A big scary dragon was apparently the answer, as that is what was erected as a representation of the monster “Slum’”
THE STATUE OF EQUITY AT THE GUILDHALL
A grand statue is found on the Guildhall building on Burton Street.
This statue marked “E” is of the figure “Equity”.
There is another marked “J” for “Justice” – hardly surprising on a building that housed the city’s magistrates’ court for more than a century.
The Guildhall was built in 1887-8 by Verity and Hunt in French Renaissance style, at a cost of £65,000. Plans were green-lit last year to turn the historic building into a luxury multi-million-pound hotel.
THE FASCES, NATIONAL JUSTICE MUSEUM
Less of a statue this one, but an odd carving can be found on the National Justice Museum on High
Pavement. The fasces – a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe – were ancient Rome’s symbol of authority. And this carving, showing a bundle of birch rods around an axe bound with leather straps, would have been a sign of law and order when the Shire Hall was rebuilt on this site in 1770.
STONE MONKEY, THURLAND STREET
On this grand old Watson Fothergill building built between 1877 and 1882 – which used to be a Natwest bank branch – there is a small statue of a monkey.
It perches by a brick chimney at the far end of the building’s Thurland Street side — you need to be the other side of the road before you can catch a glimpse of its tail.
The building was originally built as the Nottingham and Nottinghamsire Bank (established 1834) by Fothergill between 1877 and 1882
It is believed the famed architect added the carved monkey as a joke of some sort. All we know for sure is that it certainly makes Fothergill’s architectural work here even more cherished.
GREEN MAN, DOVECOTE LANE RECREATION GROUND
A little further out of the in city in Beeston is another odd statue.
Standing at five feet tall is a unique wooden statue in a Nottinghamshire park of a man looking humbly at those passing by.
Located at the south-west entrance of Dovecote Lane Recreation Ground is the “Green Man” statue that welcomes those coming into the park from Trevor Road.
Installed in 2008, the sculpture celebrates 100 years of the park’s history and was sculpted by local man Stan Bullard who has since passed away.
SKY MIRROR
The acclaimed work of a worldfamous sculptor, this large and unique mirror was unveiled in the city centre at the turn of the millennium.
Located just outside the Nottingham Playhouse, the Sky Mirror has a distorted reflection that is nearly 6 metres in diameter and weighs 10 tonnes.
Its designer was sculptor Anish Kapoor who unveiled the design in 2001.
It is made from strips of stainless steel and was manufactured in Finland through a process of cold forging and finely polished to give it its highly reflective surface.
The public sculpture consists of a 20-footwide concave dish angled upwards towards the sky. Turning the world upside down in its reflection, Kapoor seeks individuals to question perspective in his work.
Since its installation it has become one of the most popular public works of art in the city’s history – and a positive boon for Nottingham in the age of Instagram.
Speaking about the Sky Mirror at its 20th anniversary back in May, Anish Kapoor said: “Sky Mirror at the Nottingham Playhouse was installed 20 years ago with the help and enthusiasm of the then director of the Playhouse Ruth Mackenzie.
“It is in many ways a confusing object.
“Its concavity creates a surface and spatial field that is hard to determine, and situated here in the city centre it invites communal participation in a moment of fracture and distortion.”