Weymouth: ANZAC memorial

Today is Anzac Day in New Zealand, the day New Zealanders and Australians remember, acknowledge and honour all those who have served and died in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations around the world, the Antipodean equivalent of Britain's Remembrance Sunday and the USA's Veterans Day.

I was a little surprised when I noticed this memorial to the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) forces on the front in Weymouth but I should have realised that troops from all participating nations would have passed through many of the seaside towns and ports along the south coast of England, and so it was in Weymouth. As the inscriptions on the pillar explain:

'A. I. F. [Australian Imperial Force]
In memory of the ANZAC volunteer troops who after action at Gallipoli in 1915 passed through hospitals and training camps in Dorset'

And

'N. Z. E. F. [New Zealand Expeditionary Force]
These ANZAC troops later moved from Dorset to action in Palestine and the Western Front'

And, not shown here, the road side of the pillar reads:

'ANZAC memorial
We will remember them'

Plus, on a lower step of the platform

'They came from afar
in the cause of freedom'

Sponsored by members of the Weymouth and Portland Residents' Association, Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, individuals and local businesses, the memorial was dedicated on 1 June 2005 and commemorates the involvement of ANZAC soldiers in World War One and the presence of those troops in camps in the local area during that time. 

The Virtual War Memorial Australia website provides additional information:

Weymouth was the depot for the Anzacs Gallipoli casualties sent to UK hospitals for
treatment and then discharged as convalescent. The depot opened in May 1915 and was the joint Australian and New Zealand depot until the NZ depot opened at Hornchurch in Essex in April 1916. Weymouth then became AIF Command Depot No.2 which accommodated those men not expected to be fit for duty within six months, therefore, most of the Diggers repatriated as a result of wounds or sickness passed through Weymouth. During the years 1915-1919 over 120,000 Australian and New Zealand troops passed through Weymouth.
The Hotel Prince Regent opposite the ANZAC Memorial was previously known as Hotel Burdon and was one of nine military hospitals in Weymouth during World war One.

 

Cardiff Bay: Adventurers Quay artworks

This is Adventurers Quay, a large residential development on the edge of Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay and, as you can see, around the ground floor of the building, at pedestrian eye level, there's an artwork.

The artwork, which was installed in 1999, has two components, one a mosaic of ceramic sails coloured blue and white, the other, perhaps less obvious, the grilles that cover the window openings to the car park inside the building.

The 'Terracotta Sails' mosaic is the work of ceramicist David Mackie (b. 1965), a prolific artist whose website lists completed artworks dating from 1994 to 2024, several of which can be seen in the Cardiff area. As well as the highly glazed sails, there's an undulating row of terracotta bricks fashioned to resemble a rope running along the lower part of the artwork. I quite like this piece, though I think the concept lacks imagination, sails being a very common theme among the artworks around Cardiff Bay.

Passers-by might be forgiven for not realising that the 11 steel grilles covering the car park openings are an artwork, so simple are they. These are the work of Andrew Rowe (b. 1963), whose DAR Design website describes him as a 'designer, sculptor and artist blacksmith', who works 'to commission, providing unique design solutions for public art, architectural metalwork, street furniture and sculpture'.

Cardiff Bay: Blue Beacon

I'd walked past this artwork many times before I paused to look at it more closely, possibly because it's located outside Bute Town Police Station, and I've never thought it a good idea to be seen lingering outside police stations. 

I've called this blog 'Blue Beacon' but I've also seen this artwork called 'Lighthouse' and 'Blue Light' – I'm not sure which is correct. 

According to his website, this piece was designed by British sculptor Mark Renn (1952–2019), with assistance in the design development and fabrication management from Mick Thacker. 

The 60-foot-tall stainless steel construction is the work of 'A1 Stainless, South Wales Monuments, Richard Williams', and there's also an LED lighting system that produces a pulsing blue light at night. 

The granite base of the structure is inscribed with a poem, 'The Ballast Bank', from the publication Zen Cymru, by Peter Finch. 

You can read the poem in full on Finch's website, which offers the following explanation for the piece and its relevance to the location:

The Ballast Bank is a poem by Peter Finch which has been incorporated into Renn and Thackers' Blue Light public artwork at the entrance to the South Wales Police Headquarters on James Street, Cardiff. This station is built very near where in the early days of Cardiff as a trading port stood a quarter mile bank of off-loaded ballast. This had been dumped by arriving ships making space for their outgoing cargoes of iron and coal. The Bank is clearly visible on John Wood's late 1830s map of the town.

The artwork puts some of that ballast bank back. The poem delineates the races, language groupings, trades and ideas which flowed in and out of the burgeoning industrial town as it exponentially developed. In its original form the poem circled Renn and Thacker's silver tower to run across the station entrance steps, in through the doors, up across reception finishing on the reception desk's surface.

According to the newspaper Wales Online, there seems to have been some controversy and criticism about the erection of this artwork, not surprising when you consider that upwards of £70,000 of taxpayers' money was used to pay for it in 2013.