Sculpture gift to be placed at entrance of historic market town

A three-metre-high steel ram is to be placed at the entrance to Kirkby Lonsdale as a gift by a renowned local sculptor.

Andy Kay, whose striking pieces of work can be seen across the world, has decided to give the ram sculpture to Kirkby Lonsdale.

It will sit on a ten-tonne stone plinth in the middle of the roundabout on the A65 close to Booth’s supermarket and is set to become a new landmark in the area.

“I am donating the sculpture because the town has been very good to me over the past 30 years,” said Andrew, owner of Andrew Kay Sculpture, which is based at Beckside Studio just outside Kirkby Lonsdale.

“Various people in the town helped me when I first set up the business. I am a great believer in the community and I wanted to give something back.

“In addition, in the wake of the tragic fire in Kirkby Lonsdale in December, this is going to be a small part of the regeneration of the town.”

The sculpture is set to be installed at the roundabout within the next few weeks.

Andy’s sculptures feature a variety of animals and birds but he chose the ram partly because Kirkby Lonsdale has old drovers’ roads, along which farmers used to bring their hill rams and sheep to the town’s livestock market.

“Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club is a prominent part of the town and its logo is a ram,” said Andy. “We are also close to the border of the Yorkshire Dales, whose national park authority has a ram’s head on its logo.

“I hope the sculpture will be arresting – something that takes people’s minds off the mundane for a few seconds. Approaching from Kendal the ram will be looking, unfazed, directly at you with its front hooves raised a little. The roundabout is obviously circular so we have tried to make the ram interesting from every angle.”

The stone for the plinth was donated by Heidelberg quarries at Ingleton. Various planning permissions have been obtained from Westmorland and Furness Council and the Highways Agency.

“Several prominent people in the town and members of the town council have helped push the project forward, including Allan Muirhead BEM, Cllr Mike Marczynski and local photographer Cllr Robin Ree,” said Andy.

Andy graduated from Leeds University with a BA Hons in design in 1992. He then toured Scandinavia extensively on a travel scholarship. From this experience he acquired a respect for the pure, clean design ethos that is so apparent in Scandinavian design.

After spending time on an Arctic trawler working around the Lofoten Islands, he was a set designer for The Franz Kafka Theatre in Prague, before returning to England and establishing a sculpture studio near Kirkby Lonsdale in 1993.

“As a child I was always whittling sticks and carving animals out of wood. I describe my work as a charcoal drawing brought to life in mild steel. The three-dimensional sculptures are mostly of wildlife indigenous to the United Kingdom. I love wildlife and we see a lot of it around here, including hares, herons, deer and the occasional kingfisher.

“I try to capture what I call the ‘moment’ of an animal. For example, a hind has been grazing, it hears a noise you make and looks up at you. It’s that instant I want to capture because if the sculptures are not ‘alive’ you may as well throw them in the scrap bin.

“I aim to keep the sculptures minimal, using as little steel as possible, while still depicting the skeleton, the musculature and the sinews of the creature and getting that sense of life into it.”

The sculptures work well as bold silhouettes on a hillside or small mound or can be set more subtly with foliage and woodland behind them. “One client has a herd of eight deer which he has put within a grove of eucalyptus trees on his estate and they look absolutely brilliant,” said Andy.

But clients do not have to have large grounds – while some pieces sit well on estates and in castle grounds, smaller sculptures such as birds, pheasants and foxes can be placed anywhere.

All the sculptures are left in their natural state where they develop a surface patination of rust. This ochre colour is a very similar hue to the actual animals.

The sculptures can weigh from 20kgs for a hare up to half a tonne for an Iberian bull and Kirkby Lonsdale’s ram. Clients can order various animals and birds or commission a one-off piece of work.

For example, Andy was commissioned by Thwaites brewery to create a commemorative sculpture of a dray wagon being pulled by two magnificent shire horses for its new headquarters. A Swiss hotelier commissioned a watchful stag and an alert hind to be sited outside Chetzeron, his boutique hotel in the Crans-Montana alps of Switzerland. The sculptures were air lifted into position by helicopter and now overlook the whole Sierre mountain range.

Andy’s clients include prominent public figures and organisations, including Richard Curtis and Emma Freud; Sir Tom Stoppard and Lady Sabrina Guinness; Lord and Lady Brookeborough in County Fermanagh; comedian John Bishop; Hong Kong Golf Club; English Heritage and the National Trust.

As well as Andy, the business includes his wife Anneley as co-director and two members of staff Tilly Mills and Kurt von Rugemer.

The element Andy most enjoys about his job is when he is commissioned to create a new sculpture. “It taxes the brain and really interests me creatively. For example, I have created a one-off, three-metre-long leopard for Luc van Raemdonck, from Belgium, who has a conservation lodge in Namibia.

“I am living here in Kirkby Lonsdale and yet a leopard I created is in Namibia – I can hardly believe it!”