Cardiff Bay: Panorama Stone

When I first photographed the Panorama Stone, it wasn't where it is now. Thirty years after it was installed in 1993, this artwork was relocated to make way for a much larger sculpture depicting three black Cardiff men, who originally played amateur rugby union in Wales but made the move to play professional rugby league for English clubs. (That sculpture will feature in a forthcoming blog post.)
 

The Panorama Stone wasn't moved very far though; it is in Cardiff Bay's Landsea Square, just around the corner from its initial location. The stone was one of the many public artworks commissioned by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation around the time the Barrage was being completed and the Bay was being redeveloped as a 'tourist destination', and was designed to show those locations around the world that had strong associations with the Bay, with Cardiff and with Wales. The sculptor was Leonard 'Jonah' Jones (1919 – 2004), known not only for his sculptural works in slate, stone and bronze but also for his calligraphy, painting, and work in art education.

Birds: 3 Assembly Square

 If you were to google "3 Assembly Square", you would learn that it's 'a prime waterfront office development extending to a total of 65,765 sq ft over ground and five upper floors, with undercroft car parking for 70 cars'. It's one of those glass-and-steel office constructions that can be seen in any large city anywhere in the western world but, in my biased eyes, it has one redeeming feature.

At the entrance to the building stands a large plinth that supports a tiny sculpture of two anonymous (are they gulls, perhaps?) rusty looking metallic birds. I've not been able to uncover anything about the birds but they are an inspired addition to an otherwise very ordinary edifice.

Cardiff Bay: Willows clock

I imagine very few people even notice this modern-looking clock, designed by Andrew Hazell in 2000, as they shop or dine in the retail outlets and eateries beneath the small roof-top tower in which it sits, in Cardiff Bay’s Mermaid Quay.

As the clock is inaccessible, passers-by would neither be able to see the clock properly nor read what is written around the two faces: ‘E T Willows Pioneer Aeronaut 1886 1926’, though the 2 in 1926 seems to have fallen off the western face of the clock.

 

The clock celebrates the life and achievements of one of Cardiff’s lesser known inhabitants, Ernest Thompson Willows (1886 – 1926), and the two faces of the clock were apparently intended to represent Cardiff and London, a nod to Willows’ historic airship flight between the two cities in August 1910. (You may notice, in the photo below, that the times shown on the two faces are different; there is no time difference between Cardiff and London, of course, so I presume this is a fault in one of the clocks. My clock photos were taken some years apart.)

 

There is an excellent biography of Ernest Willows on the Roath Local History Society website so I won't repeat his details here. Instead, I thought I'd use a couple of images from the Welsh newspapers of the time to highlight one of his most notable achievements, that 1910 airship flight to London. The caption for this first image, published in The Cardiff Times on 25 December 1909, reads: 'The Willows Airship Tests. The picture shows one of Mr Willows' flights, at Cardiff on Saturday. (Metropole studio, Cardiff.)'

 

And this second image, from the Evening Express and Evening Mail of 8 August 1910, documents

THE START OF MR. E. T. WILLOWS' RECORD FLIGHT.
(1) Mr. Willows ready to start. It will be seen that the young balloonist is wearing a lifebelt in case of a mishap whilst crossing the Bristol Channel. (2) The airship leaves the shed at 7.50 p.m. (3) Final examination of the motor and machinery. (4) The start. Mr. Willows heads for London.

 

You can read Roath Local History Society's biography to learn more of Willows' career but, suffice to say, his achievements were barely recognised during his lifetime and his short life was ended by an aerial accident; Willows and four others were killed when the basket beneath their balloon disintegrated and they plummeted to the ground.

 

Ernest Thompson Willows is buried in Cardiff's Cathays Cemetery; his grave is number 20 on the Cathays Cemetery Heritage Trail. As his headstone notes, Willows shares the plot with his infant daughter and his parents.