Blog

Our 2020 AGM took place on Saturday 5th December at 11:00am to 12:00pm via Zoom.

To view a recording of the meeting click here.

If you’d like to see the minutes you can see them here, AGM MINUTES 2020.

Our outgoing Marketing Coordinator, Hatty Leith, let us know all about her work and successes during her time with WBA. She’s done a wonderful job and she will be sorely missed. You can see her report here.

Here we have Hatty’s sketch of the Zoom from the AGM.

Our Membership Fees are changing to help us through these diffcult times. As of 1st Jan 2021, our rates for both new members and renewals will be as follows:
2021 Annual Membership Rates
Individual members    £20 (was £15)
Organisations               £25 (was £20)
NEW CATEGORY: Students and under-30s£10 for their first year of membership.

The Google Forms document refers to the following documents:

• Attachment 1: 2020 Agenda & 2019 Minutes
• Attachment 2: CIC report
• Attachment 3: Treasurer’s Report  AGM 2019-20 and Financial Statements 2019-20 with Chair’s report
• Attachment 4: Recovery Plan
• Attachment 5: Nomination Form

 

The importance of nature during lockdown helped us cope, heal and keep connected with life, as explored in a recent article in The Guardian. As imminently start our second national lockdown this November, we’re looking back at our Talk-Walk-Reflect project earlier in autumn.

Our cornerstone creative walks programme wasn’t able to go ahead this year, but we felt strongly that experiencing the natural world was more important than ever to include in our slimmed down ‘Virtually Autumn’ programme.

In mid-September, writers Ruthie Collins, John Arnett and Melinda Appleby, chaired by Genevieve Rudd, took the group on a journey along the River Waveney…

At the top of the Waveney Valley, Ruthie Collins spoke about being inspired by the waterways, personally, culturally and socially. Ruthie creates ‘poetry as public art’, installed in everyday locations, such as Great Yarmouth train station and writes in response to heritage, hidden voices and our relationship with nature. Her inspiration is found in the journey – walking as art – and draws parallels between the processes of walking and writing. Watch out for her public art poem Dreaming of Albion, commissioned by Norfolk County Council, to be installed in 2021.

To receive a Natural Wonder ‘inspiration kit’ to go with the poem, featuring trails, poetry and activities to inspire wellbeing, literacy and writing – email ruthie@ruthiecollins.co.uk.

John Arnett, based in the mid-Waveney Valley at Harleston, spoke about the process of compiling his book: ‘By the Waveney…: Wonderful walks in the Waveney Valley’. Initially published by the River Waveney Trust in 2016, John is now in the process of updating the first book, and writing a second collection of walks covering a slightly wider area. John said that walking in universal – “there is no such thing as a professional walker” – and linked this with early stages of all of our lives, learning to walk for the first time.

If you’d like a copy of John’s book, please email: johnarnett@btinternet.com.

And finally, Melinda Appleby, represented the lower Waveney Valley around Diss. She spoke about “finding the magic in the mundane” as an approach to landscape writing. Melinda’s own approach is about nature, culture and connections. She gave readings from her work which hone in on detail from the process of regular walking. She said that starting from your doorstep, even if you live somewhere urban, can be inspiring if you take a closer look, such as dandelions growing through the cracks.

In response, the Talk-Walk Reflect group took their notebooks, put on their walking books and stepped out in the Waveney Valley to see the landscape through new perspectives…

In no particular order, please enjoy the written, visual and video responses the group created or sourced as inspiration, which has been shared with their kind permission.

Paul Lawrence

I am fortunate to be able to walk to the river Waveney from my front door. In one direction, I can walk along the river into Beccles, and, in the other direction, to the Carlton Marshes nature reserve. When I walk here, I sometimes like to give myself a threshold from which the walk begins. This is often the large metal gate across the railway line between Lowestoft and Ipswich which I need to open, and close, en route to the river. To the side of the gate, stands an imposing sign. It reads, in bold letters:
Stop, Look, Listen. And in smaller print, “ beware of trains”.

Is that a warning to stop, look and listen? Or, as I prefer to view it, an invitation? I take it as a way of approaching the walk I am about to take. I set myself: I will be ready to stop, to simply stand still as I make my way through the woods to the river. I will look – all around me, down on the ground, and up to the sky. I may see something I have not seen before, or see it in a way I had not expected. And I will listen – to the sounds around me, to the instant of silence, and to myself as I move forwards, step by step.

I am interested in noting how the outer landscape affects my inner landscape – the mood I am in, the impact that the route to the river has on me, emotionally and physically. Does my presence have an impact on the area around me? Clearly it does, and so I am in a relationship with the route that I take. Is it too far fetched to say that we affect each other?

The question of whether or not I feel I belong here is one that I find myself thinking about. I am not from here – but can I begin to be of here? I have lived in a city most of my life and this rural setting is relatively new to me. I cannot name plants or birds or trees- they feel somewhat alien to me. But part of me feels that I need to try and befriend them. They are welcoming me, and it is only polite to be interested in them. I just hope they don’t mind if I forget their names, or have to admit that I do not know it.

 

Rosemary Appleton

TM 07 80
(near Wortham Ling, the site of the discovery of a Saxon brooch)

And just here, the brooch slips from her clothes,
where the airy heath space opens
between the woodlands. Her cloak works loose
from the copper clasp and it slides,
already cooling, into the sandy silt.
She nudges her horse onto the bridge,
keeps the low road behind her.
Just cattle-compacted earth, here,
no more than a stepping-stone across
the stream of her childhood – too shallow
for fishing, too narrow for skimming stones.
She will never come back for it, but
will feel its absence later, when a chill
settles round her neck through the mist
and she reaches in the darkness for her cloak’s
thick folds. But she holds her gaze straight ahead,
between her horse’s ears, the brooch now
just another thing which she has left behind.

 

Netta Swallow

Netta filmed a hedge near Geldeston filled with birdsong on a backdrop of speeding cars, which was inspired by a poem from the 1940s called ‘Hedge Cutting’ from the book Poems of the Land Army.

 

 

Janet Davies

Beside Oulton Dyke

From the dyke, across the marsh the line of trees marks the river’s banks. A heron flies low and slow along the river’s course, as marsh harriers (three today) quarter the scrape with swooping flight.
A kestrel’s hovering reflection shimmers on the surface mid-way across the dyke. Underbelly pale and barred tail feathers fanned out, gently angling to maintain eye contact with the ground.

Today the dyke has oily eddies, swirling downstream, and small bubbles pass on their way to meet the river. Andromeda and Jewel of Light pass my watch-point as I stand on the fisherman’s stage. Their wash disturbing a string of yellow wat

er lily, submerging the floating heads for an instant until their buoyant, cupped flowers re-emerge. I remember how their common name is Brandy Bottle, so named because their smell is reminiscent of dregs of wine. I don’t catch that scent today, just the fresh smell of wet reed and lush marsh grass.

A sudden splash and I’m in time to see a fish leap, attracted by a fly above the surface. Out of its element for a moment, it quickly drops back into the still water and concentric ripples extend towards the banks. At its re-entry point, air is trapped into bubbles on the surface and I watch as they float, in small groups, on down the dyke.
It’s a moment in time where my observation changes what I’ve always believed about bubbles passing in the dyke. I realise now that what I’d assumed to be marsh gas bubbles from the mud, may have another cause. They may, instead, be echoes of ambitious upstream fish.

Ann Follows

Blyth river footpath.

Reeds harbour nest sites
bearded tit, bunting, warbler
early summer’s song

Otter’s silent pathways
cross river bank and ditch
spraint marked territory

Low light intense glow
at dawn’s first summer chorus
I’m here on the marsh

 

One Self Two Landscapes.

Born of water and reed
my heart-home is flatland
marsh, estuary, creek.

Cumbrian Fell and Dale
is rock and stone of glacial
form, heat and cool locked firm.

Blyth valley is water meadow
eases flood, feeds cattle
awakens light through water.

The Dales Way is a drovers’ route
cuts through market town,
field and woodland, glade and peak.

Suffolk barriers are ditch, dyke and bridge
draining water, drying land.
Sluice, mill and wind sail.

A thousand miles of dry stone wall,
like pencil lines but built not drawn,
head not heart,
hewn not dug they square the hillsides.

Moss, lichen, curlew, lark
harebell, meadow buttercup
they thrive in both – as do I.

A ‘Slow TV’ video in three chapters detailing The Sunset, The Gloaming and The Light Summer’s Night.

Nightingale. It is all about the Nightingale. I have recorded them at Bridge Wood next to the A14, at Aldeburgh next to the main road by the golf course and in the woods near Hatcheston but people, including Alex Bass of Local Birding, kept telling me that if I wanted to hear Nightingales I should go to Westleton Heath.

Of course I have been to Westleton Heath but to walk and to look, and probably not at the right time. Then this year the Waveney Sculpture Trail moved its site to Potton Hall which is right next to Westleton Heath, so I decided to make a piece about the Heath for the Sculpture Trail.

I have been making SoundHide installations since 2015 where I made the original straw bale hut for the Waveney and Blyth Arts Sculpture Trail at Earsham. Last year I created the SoundHide Cinema at Raveningham where the audience could watch the sunrise at Suffolk Wildlife’s Carlton Marshes and hear the incredible dawn chorus there, in a converted caravan lined with sheep’s wool. My plan for the Potton Hall Sculpture Trail was to do a soundscape of Westleton Heath and play it in the caravan as a SoundHide with no visuals but COV-19 put paid to the trail. It also curtailed my recording plans during March and April.

Once lockdown was eased and I was able to travel a bit further, I decided I would go to the heath and record in the evening and nighttime because as well as nightingales in the woods, Westleton Heath is home to nightjars. These are amazing birds that you mostly hear. Their song is described as churring and they clap their wings in flight. This is all to establish territory and find a mate – sound is important in the dark.

On my first visit I discovered the woods were seemingly full of nightingales though I suspect it was two males competing for territory and a mate. I also heard blackcap, song thrush, robin, wood pigeon, a family of long tailed tits and a cuckoo. One notable night the cuckoo was joined by motorbikes which seemed to be circling the heath for hours. I didn’t use them in the final piece but you can hear a clip on my SoundCloud account.

I have made a 45 minute video of the sunset and the light sky after sunset. Initially I have split these into 15 minute chunks to highlight different species as they come out. I will release a full 45 minute version eventually but  for now the Chapters are being  released on Fridays.

W&BA takes a look at the Future for Theatres in our Area.

After the Prime Minister announced last week that Theatres can reopen with social distancing in place from the beginning of August, W&BA have been wondering what this will mean for some of the local venues we’ve worked with over the years. Like us, many of these venues are very small organisations who rely heavily on ticket sales to stay afloat. They are also vital creative honeypots, responsible for keeping creatives from all areas of the Arts connected both with each other and their audiences.

In June, Conservative MP and former actor Gile Watling shared his thoughts with The Guardian. “People are beginning to understand just how valuable this is, and how much in danger it is. And how historically important it is.” He shared his fears that, without government funding and guidance, many theatres across the UK are facing the prospect of shutting down.

The theatres in the Waveney and Blyth areas have been sharing their own varied experiences and plans recently, with some beginning to explore how they’re hoping to open in the coming months.

At present, The Cut in Halesworth has a series of online events scheduled, though physical events will begin again in September. The Fisher Theatre in Bungay are looking at a soft opening from September onwards too, “with local and in-house activities and events to reconnect with our community and audiences.” In the meantime, they are “planning and implementing procedures and facilities to support our safe opening in accordance with government guidance.” They’re also working with Upshoot Theatre Company who regularly produce work at the Fisher Theatre, to promote their Garden Theatre performances. These will take place in Bungay and Halesworth in mid September, with the aim of “reconnecting our community with the joys of live performance.”

Sadly, by contrast, the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft published an announcement last week, stating that, as a result of lockdown and a ‘catastrophic’ drop in their income, “we have reached the conclusion that we have no choice but to reduce our overheads and scale back our operation. We have had to make the incredibly hard decision to begin a period of redundancy consultation with our staff.” In the announcement they thanked all their supporters, including Lowestoft Town Council and the Arts Council, and assured us that “The Marina Theatre Trust remains committed to playing a key role in the cultural life of Lowestoft. We will be a different organisation when we emerge into a very different landscape, but we want to be able to offer our audiences the very best entertainment we can. As soon as we can re-open safely and economically, we will welcome back our community.” You can read the statement in full here.

Meanwhile, The Seagull Theatre have started to take small steps toward opening with their much loved ‘Memory Cafe’ for anymore living with dementia and their carers. After the first cafe event on Wednesday 15th July they wrote, “Today felt….normal and it was good. We were so pleased to welcome back our lovely families for memory cafe.” The next session will be on 29th July from 10.30am until midday. The Seagull has also been changing and updating their website, so take a look at the improvements they’ve made.

Across the opposite side of our area, The Bank in Eye have given us an uplifting update on their plans: “We are working hard in the background to come back fitter and stronger!” They’ve been running online events on Thursday evenings and have been making the most of lockdown by working out plans to become “a carbon-neutral building and influence others in our community to follow suit.” They have also partnered with Suffolk Mind to “address unmet needs in our community for those whose situation was poor before Covid-19 but worsened during shut down.”

Our ‘friendly Bank Manager’ Peter said The Bank plans to reopen on 9th Sept for their Art group and Knit & Natter Craft group. “Before then we plan to reconfigure the Main Hall to provide more flexible space by replacing the stage with a lower demountable version. The coffee station will be moved to allow one large exhibition wall. Our meeting room and office will be upgraded to accommodate private hire and space a possible resident artist.” He added “As ever, we are always seeking more participation particularly from Artists who have organisational skills, perhaps someone reading this fancies a Residency or Art Director role?” We’re excited to see all these exciting plans come to life in the future.

Further uplifting news has reached us from The Corn Hall in Diss, which has just celebrated its 10th birthday. In their newsletter, they expressed thanks to all their supporters for making donations, renewing memberships and sending messages of support.

During lockdown The Corn Hall has installed safety elements including perspex screens in the Box Office and Cafe, and multiple hand sanitiser stations. They said “We are initially planning to run many events in cabaret-style which will allow for family and household bubble groups. We’ll give more details on this soon.” Meanwhile, on 24th July until the end of August the Corn Hall is hosting a ‘Welcome Back’ exhibition. Curator David Case said “Although the Corn Hall is not fully up and running yet, we thought we would welcome our audience back with a ‘taster’ of the rescheduled shows we have coming up.” Thankfully many of the live shows which had to be cancelled have now been rescheduled. You can view their programme of events here.

We’ll be keeping an eye on how all these venues and others fair over the coming months and will continue to keep our members and our newsletter subscribers up to date.

If you are part of a local theatre venue in our area, please consider signing up as a Member Organisation. With the support of your membership, we can share your reopening plans and direct your message to our culture-interested audience in the locality. We’ll promote your events across our social media platforms and in our fortnightly newsletter.

To all the theatres opening soon, break a leg!

By Ann Follows and Simon Raven

W&BA Halesworth Representatives

In this series of blog articles, Spotlight On… takes a closer look at the 8 towns which make up the W&BA micro-region from the perspectives of our local area coordinators within our management committee. In this article, our two Halesworth representatives introduce us to what is remarkable about their Suffolk Market Town.

Halesworth sits at the heart of the Blyth Valley. It is one of Suffolk’s quietly modest gems, close to the Heritage Coast with a wealth of historic, ecological and natural features. Over many years Halesworth has been a transport hub for the local agricultural, brewery and fishing industries, taking products – first by wherry and later by train and road – from the beautiful surrounding farmland and the harbour at Southwold down to Ipswich and London. Now it is a thriving residential town that celebrates its heritage and provides opportunities to enjoy a wealth of cultural, social and environmental activities.

Culture is well represented through various buildings in the town. At one end of the Thoroughfare, the pedestrianised town centre, is the Halesworth Gallery on the top floor of a terrace of oak beamed ancient alms houses next to the church, while at the other end of the Thoroughfare (about ninety meters beyond the roundabout) is The Cut Arts Centre – an all-purpose urban sized arts–hub created out of a large ex-maltings building. Between these, is the impressive glass-fronted 1996 Library building (Suffolk Libraries) which is a busy hub for all generations living here.

The Cut has established a regional reputation for its programme of visual art exhibitions and performing arts shows, as well as regular arts-related classes and one-off workshops and lecture presentations.  It also houses a permanent interactive museum space – The Malt Experience – dedicated to the C19th malting industry which was a major reason for the town’s growth and prosperity.  A short walk up the adjacent Station Road takes the visitor to the Halesworth & District Museum which houses an amazingly varied collection of artefacts, models and documents telling the much older history of the town and its environs.

An unusual feature of this small Suffolk town, is the scope and range of its independent retail and service businesses – everything from a lively local bookshop to solicitors and estate agents. In fact shoppers can get anything from antiques and bric-a-brac to sewing needles and repairs, key-cutting to specialist craft jewellery, seasonal fruit and vegetables fresh from the two independent grocers, or locally grown meat from the two independent butchers. The World Land Trust – a significant international conservation organisation – has its base and walk-in shop and gallery here as well. 

Shopping along the pedestrianised Thoroughfare is on a truly human scale with opportunities to browse, relax and refresh. There are numerous small cafés, two pubs and international food outlets in the form of delis and takeaways. A favourite is ‘Focus Organics’ which has a café, deli and ethnic-oriented life-style shop. In good weather it is an additional pleasure to sit and watch the world go by from their outside tables. The Angel Inn on the corner is famous for Cleoni’s, its Italian restaurant.

It is interesting to walk around and see the town’s history revealed in its architecture and landscape. There’s a large town house, formerly the brewery house, where father and son botanists Sir William and Sir Joseph Hooker briefly lived. Sir William was the first Director of Kew Gardens. Local conservation and volunteer groups are restoring the health of the River Blyth and the New Reach canal while a recently formed group of enthusiasts are restoring the town-end of the Halesworth to Southwold heritage railway. 

Halesworth also boasts an active social and artistic community. Many clubs and groups are based here including an extremely creative University of the Third Age and Halesworth In Bloom which maintains attractive plant displays throughout the town centre using planters made by the local Men’s Shed. To appreciate all these aspects of the town, you can take a short circular walk signposting all the main historic houses and sites.

Just over the town’s ring-road is the beautiful natural environment of the Millennium Green – said to be the largest such Green in England – an area of conservation and wildlife managed by the Town Council and a team of local volunteers. Here you can meander along the quiet footpath by the New Reach canal or through the adjacent wild flower meadows. For cyclists, there’s a registered cycle path that travels for a mile from Halesworth through the Millennium Green to the village of Mells. Adjacent to the Green is Town Park where the sound of children playing in the well-equipped playground and teenagers skateboarding reminds us that Halesworth is a place that offers something for everyone, residents and visitors alike.

Find out more about the best places to visit in and around Halesworth in The Suffolk Coast’s Guide.

Read our Spotlight on Great Yarmouth, and look out for features on our other towns coming soon.

 

Banner Image by Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

On 25th May 2020, science writer and LGBTQ activist, Christian Cooper, was bird watching in Central Park, New York City, when he asked a woman to put her dog back on its lead as she was in a part of the park that was not dog friendly. What ensued after has been spread across the news ever since, and has been just one of many examples of the hostility people of colour experience across the world on a daily basis.

Until hearing about Chris Cooper in the media, a lot of white people (myself included) will never have considered what it is like to be a person of colour out in nature. In the last month at W&BA we’ve been thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement and how we can do more as an organisation to provide a welcoming space for people of colour in our area to share their love of nature and creativity.

Being a predominantly white community in Norfolk and Suffolk, we believe the best thing we can all do right now is educate ourselves and listen to what people of colour have to say. This is why we’ve listed some links below. We know it’s not much, but it’s a start, and something we want to work on in the future.

If you are a creative or nature-inspired person of colour living in the Waveney and Blyth area, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and let us know what more you’d like to see from organisations like ours.

Links to Visit:

Birdgirl: Black2Nature Founder Mya-Rose Craig

Mya-Rose is a British Bangladeshi ornithologist and campaigner for equal rights from Bristol. In February 2020, she received an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Bristol, and is said to be the youngest British person to receive such an award. She founded the project Black2Nature at the age of 14, with the aim of encouraging young Visible Minority Ethnic (VME) people to engage more with nature. Reading about her work is really inspiring.

---

Black British Female Authors you should read

The Black History Month website is a great resource thats well worth exploring. This is one of their wonderfully curated lists. Incidentally, though she is not on this list, award winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge is also an incredible black British female writer, best known for her Sunday Times Bestseller ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’. Click the book title to read a preview of the first chapter, which discusses black British history that we should all know, yet sadly aren’t taught in schools. Despite her book being published in 2017, it has only been this month, June 2020, that she has become the first black British author to take the overall No 1 spot in the UK’s official book charts.

---

Support Black History Education

When reading Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book, it shocked me how little I knew of black British history as a white woman. Surely it should be taught in schools? We have facts WW1 and WW2 drummed into us as children, but our black history has played just as much of an important roll in shaping today’s society. The Black Curriculum is a social enterprise, set up in 2019 to address the lack of Black British history in the UK curriculum. “We believe that by delivering arts focused Black history programmes, providing teacher training and campaigning through mobilising young people, we can facilitate social change.” You can read more here about how they’re working to change the curriculum in the UK and we can all help them take action through donations, writing to MPs and learning more about Black British history for ourselves.

---

Norwich Black Lives Matter Speeches

On Sunday 7th June, roughly 1000 peaceful protesters gathered outside The Forum and 350 in Eaton Park in Norwich to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement, while over 2000 people joined in from home. Speakers at Eaton Park shared their own experiences of racism and what it is like being a person of colour in Norfolk. Watch the speeches online here and show your support by following the facebook page. After the protest,  the Norwich Supports Black Lives Matter group called out for creatives, events organisers and others with relevant experience to get in touch in order to help in future events.

---

50 Years of Black Creativity

In June 2019, Somerset House held an exhibition celebrating Black experience, creativity and influence. Get Up Stand Up Now is a 10 minute film curated by artist Zak Ové for the exhibition, reflecting upon the concept of motherland, masquerade and activism. You can watch it online today.

---

Black Britain in Colour

Recently, photo colouriser Tom Marshall released a series of colourised historical photographs to “try and highlight moments of Black British history in a way that might open a few eyes to the contributions of Black people in this country over the past century.” He writes, “I have chosen photos taken in Britain since 1889 of British and Commonwealth heroes, fighters, workers and ordinary men and women, along with examples of the hardship endured, much of which is still felt today. My aim in colourising these photos was to highlight and celebrate the rich diversity of the country I love. Anti racism is a process which includes self-education and educating others. I hope the colourised photos in this blog bring these stories and people to life.”

Get creative and share your work with us!

Research shows that creative activities help the brain to cope with emotions. Since we’re all still in a state of flux right now, our Vice Chair Melinda Appleby and our Chair Genevieve Rudd decided now is a good time to share some creative prompts to keep us all inspired and making throughout this hard time.

As a result, we’ll be sharing a creative prompt in our newsletter every fortnight that we’d love for our readers (members and non-members alike) to engage with. We’ll keep the details of them all on this page for you to go back to anytime, and if you’d like to share what you’ve made after following the prompt, send us photos to add to our newsletter and our Finding Silver Linings page.

Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash

Creative Prompt #1: A Brush with Nature

By Genevieve Rudd, Great Yarmouth

During lockdown, I’ve been thinking more and more about resource-light art approaches which utilise things found in the immediate environment. For me, that environment has been my garden with its small “No Mow May” lawn that has taken my interest over the last few weeks. As well as cultivating a long grass drift and making dried grass nests, I’ve been ink painting with grass too, and then turning them into cyanotype photographic prints.

 

An article on recent times by our Chair, Genevieve Rudd

World Environment Day has been raising awareness and driving change for almost five decades. On 5th June last week, this year’s theme was  ‘Biodiversity’ – a theme we explore in our ‘Bugs & Blossoms’ programme (more news on that coming soon!). There are 8 million plant and animal species within the interdependent network of our planet, however, the rapid depletion of this biodiversity has us teetering on the brink of mass extinction. As the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says: “Nature is sending us a clear message” and it’s our job to listen and take action.

As in the interconnectedness of an ecosystem, the current events that are happening – from loss of biodiversity and pandemic, to racial injustice and inequality – are woven together, and we cannot address one issue without addressing the other.

Andy Maule shares his newly finished recycled brick garden creation in lockdown.

I thought you might be interested in the completion (in lockdown) of this long term project. Following my obsession for creative-making the project has involved recycling bricks (from a past building project) and, more notably, moulded bricks rescued from the demolition of Mattishall First School in 2010/11.

The Victorian school used bricks made at Costessey brick works by Gunton Bros. Gunton Bros supplied most of the decorated/moulded/modelled bricks in the Norwich area, including the highly decorated facade of Jarrolds in Norwich (ColonelUnthanksNorwich.com).

What do you do with several tons of more-or-less intact bricks?  Make a garden folly, of course. The folly is a three-leaf zigzag that starts nowhere particular and ends nowhere particular, and serves no real purpose, except to act as a homage to Mattishall First School. The head/face is not from the school but adds to the interest. The aim now is to let nature take hold and see what happens.

 

You can view Andy’s sculptures at AndyMaule.net or on Instagram @andyasculptor