A Cumbrian businessman says the proposed statue to the county’s chronicler of the fells should be placed on one of his beloved mountains, rather than in Kendal town centre.
Mark Weir, owner of Honister Slate Mine and no stranger to controversy, said the sculpture of author Wainwright could become the ‘Alfred of the North’. A town centre placement would devalue the work of art and it would become a pigeon roost.
Mr Weir whipped up a storm almost as big as the one which hit the Lake District during last October’s Original Mountain Marathon when he luridly described the events as coming ‘within inches of turning the Lake District mountains into a morgue’. Superintendent Gary Slater of Cumbria police described the statement at the time as ‘a little exaggeration’.
Mr Weir, as well as owning the slate mine, installed Britain’s first via ferrata on nearby Fleetwith Pike, within view of Wainwright’s favourite fell Haystacks, where the author of the Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells’ ashes are scattered.
The tourist potential of such a placing of a major art work cannot be overlooked.
The mine owner also points out that, although Wainwright lived in Kendal, the town itself is not even in the Lake District national park. He told the News & Star newspaper: “Considering his passion for the fells, to put him in a town would be a travesty.”
Wainwright himself wrote of the Honister area: “There is no beauty in despoliation and devastation, but there can be dramatic effect and interest, and so it is here.”
Sculptor Graham Ibbeson, best known for the statue of Eric Morecambe that adorns the Lancashire town from which he took his name, has been commissioned to create a statue of the Grumpy Old Fellwalker, at an estimated cost of £80,000.
BG!
14 February 2009I'd say no. A plaque, maybe, like on other fells, but not the statue.
I suppose he'll want a Snowdon-style cafe atop Fleetwith Pike next!
Graham Faithfull
14 February 2009Maybe Mark Weir should pay for a statue of Wainwright to be erected at the entrance of his slate mine.
Garve
14 February 2009Mark Weir? Isn't he the one reposible for the most ridiculous "via ferrata"? Isn't he the one who invites motorists to fill their car boots with all the slate they can hold for a tenner, before they set off down the 1 in 4 descent? Isn't he the one who kicked up all the fuss about the mountain marathon last year?
No statues on the hills please, and no plaques either for that matter. Kendal would be fine for a statue if there has to be one, but the best memorials to AW are the guide books, and by association, the fells themselves.
Dave Brown
15 February 2009A statue on Haystacks!!....No thanks Mr.Weir. AW would be turning in his grave at the thought. I'm not even sure that he would agree with one in Kendal.
Graeme Robb
16 February 2009This is the third thing that has made me think it is April 1st. I thought a 150ft white horse on top of a hillock in Kent was spectacularly stupid but this takes the biscuit. AW would have said it is a waste of money wherever it is put. Save the money for sensible things, things that need doing, not things that are just going to need more money wasted on them.
Russell
16 February 2009Mr Weir is a businessman with a mine, via ferrata and cafe at the top of Honister pass.
If the statue were palced on Wainwrights favourite fell, Haystacks, where does he think people will park etc. to go and see it?
Jon
16 February 2009Better a pigeon roost in Kendal than it being "vandalised" on a hill - as it surely would be. A statue of anyone on any of the hills Wainwright included in his guides would be completely unacceptable, and I would give it less than a month before someone tried to remove it.
Colin Jones
17 February 2009Why not go the whole hog and have a theme park in the most picturesque part of the lakes, with a big car park, interactive rides, topless waitresses and a large fluorescent mural of A.W. on the hillside.