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.

Cardiff Bay: Triple spout

I admit to never having noticed this fountain until I found it mentioned in the Cardiff Public Art Register; the register is available as a downloadable pdf, though be aware that it seems not to have been updated since 2008 and, in the interim period, some artworks have been vandalised, many have suffered damage and not been repaired, at least one has been relocated, and, despite Cardiff Council's history of neglect, more artworks have appeared around the city. 

The reason I hadn't previously noticed the 'Triple Spout' is that it's located in a hole in the ground in Cardiff Bay's Roald Dahl Plass. According to the Register entry, the location is 'a deep D shaped feeder pit that was historically used for balancing water levels in the adjacent Oval Basin'. 

The fountain is the work of British sculptor William Pye and was installed in 2000. Pye specialises in sculptures involving water; his website says he 'is inspired by the extraordinary qualities of water and fascinated by the natural laws of hydrostatics and how these can be manipulated'. Scrolling through the list of works on Pye's website I realised that I've seen at least one other previously, the font in Salisbury Cathedral, which I included in a blog written in January 2017, Salisbury Cathedral by day.

Cardiff Bay: Radio Flat Holm sculpture

In mid 2024 this four-metre-high sculpture of an old-fashioned style of radio appeared on Cardiff Bay Barrage. Financed by a National Lottery Fund Project that's supposed to be about rejuvenating Flat Holm Island, the hardwood artwork was designed and created by Glenn Davidson to celebrate the first radio transmission over open water by Guglielmo Marconi on 13 May 1897. Only that radio transmission was between Flat Holm and Lavernock, not Cardiff, and Marconi is not mentioned on the adjacent plaque because it turns out he was a fascist with close links to Benito Mussolini, and the sculpture has been sited so that viewers looking at it actually have their backs towards Flat Holm. So I fail to see how this sculpture is going to 'act as a symbol and encourage them [viewers] to explore the full range of the island's history', as envisioned by a Cardiff Council spokesperson. 

Almost two years on from its installation, the sculpture is already looking worn, its varnished surface badly affected by the elements, as is to be expected in such an exposed seaside environment. It will be interesting to see if Cardiff Council maintains and/or refurbishes the sculpture, something they have failed to do with almost every other public artwork around Cardiff Bay.

Cardiff Bay: World Harmony Peace Statue

Given the current state of the world, I thought this peace statue, located next to Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay, would be an appropriate post for this week. The statue, sculpted by Kaivalya Torpy and depicting Sri Chinmoy, was erected to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the World Harmony Run.
 

The information on the adjacent plaque explains:

Every year the World Harmony Run carries a flaming torch, as a symbol of harmony, in a relay run around the world. Running from country to country, and across several continents, the torch is passed from hand to hand and from heart to heart.

and

One of the many throughout the world, this statue was unveiled on 11 March 2012 by the Right Honourable, The Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Councillor Professor Delme Bowen, when members of the Urdd Gobatih Cyrmu and the World Harmony Run set out together on the Welsh leg of the World Harmony Run's UK tour.

The Urdd is Wales' leading youth organisation and has for over 60 years shared a message of peace and goodwill with the world.

The plaque suggests: we all need to 'hold the torch [even if metaphorically] and make a wish for peace'. I'm willing to give it a try.

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.

Cardiff Bay: Bowline Knot

Located off Havannah Street, at one of the entrances to Cardiff Bay Wetland Reserve, partially obscured behind the circle of shrubs that surrounds it and officially called Bowline Knot (according to the Cardiff Public Art Register), but also known as the Rope Knot, this 'cast bronze and mild steel' sculpture was created by Andrew Rowe in 2000.

The sculpture models a length of rope tied to a ring that is set into the ground with a bowline knot, the type that was traditionally used to tie ships to the dock at which they had moored. The art register reports that 'this bronze sculpture reflects Cardiff Bay's heritage as one of the worlds [sic] principal coal-exporting ports.'

You can read about Andrew Rowe's career on the Fresh Air website, and learn more about his current work and see examples of his formidable artworks on the website of DAR Design, the company he founded in 1990.

Cardiff art : Celtic Ring

My last blog, Under my feet: a key, was an introduction to today’s post on the public artwork that surrounds that ‘key’, which is both a name plate for the artwork and a waymarker to locate the beginning of the Taff Trail. 

The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (CBDC) was established in 1987 to regenerate the docklands, which had by that time become a wasteland of disused docks and abandoned buildings. As part of their regeneration plan, the CBDC commissioned a series of public artworks to complement the many new building programmes: the Celtic Ring is one of those commissioned pieces.

It was created by sculptor Harvey Hood in 1993. Though born in Staffordshire and educated both in Birmingham (at the Birmingham College of Art) and London (at the Royal College of Art), Hood has spent much of his adult life in Wales. After completing his MA in London, he moved to the Cardiff College of Art, where he eventually progressed to Head of the Sculpture Department. Though now retired from university teaching, and from his 30 years as director of the Berlanderi Sculpture Workshop near Raglan, Hood continues to create amazing works of sculpture. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and his work is held in public and private collections around the world.

On Harvey Hood’s personal website there is an excellent blog post that documents, using many fascinating images, the process involved in the creation of the Celtic Ring. It moves from Hood’s sketching his initial ideas on the shores of the Bay before the Barrage was built, to the intriguing process of manufacturing the artwork, from clay mould to plaster cast to fibreglass to bronze.  

As you can see from my photos of the Ring’s interior, its surface is textured with many features relating to the maritime and industrial environment in which it is located. As well as references to local landmarks like the Norwegian Church, the former Hamadryad Hospital ship, and several of the local docks, there are seafaring instruments and tidal charts. It is a remarkable artwork that has stood well the test of time since its creation almost thirty years ago.

Cardiff : an assortment of benches

We’ve all been discouraged from sitting on benches during the lockdown but, when this pandemic is finally over (or at least controlled to the point where we are able to resume some semblance of normal life), these lovely benches will be there for the good folks of Cardiff and its visitors to rest their weary legs while out walking.

The aptly named Ship in a bottle bench was installed at the top of the meadow overlooking Cardiff Bay Wetland Reserve in 2004. This bottle bench is the work of artist Melissa Gibbs who, according to her profile on London’s Artist Quarter website, is ‘a professional artist and art tutor living and working in London’. Gibbs makes ‘sculpture and installations for public and private commissions and exhibitions’.

World-renowned author Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff in 1916 so it’s probably not surprising that Cardiff likes to celebrate its famous son in diverse ways in various locations around the city. Cardiff Bay already had Roald Dahl Plas (Square) when, in August 2016, as part of the Roald Dahl centenary celebrations, a 10-metre-long crocodile sculpture became the latest addition to the Dahl memorabilia.

The Croc in the Dock sculpture, located near the Sails on the Barrage, was based on the character in the book The Enormous Crocodile. It is supposed to be a bench but it’s really too low for comfort so it’s become a fun sculpture for kids to clamber on. 

And that is probably why there is now an actual bench right next to the crocodile. Appropriately enough, the bench is shaped like a book, the back of the bench is painted with the book's front cover illustration, and it too is named The Enormous Crocodile.

If you choose to walk from Cardiff Bay back in to the city along the Taff Trail, then you might rest your sore feet awhile (but not during lockdown) with a seat on one of four similar wrought-iron benches positioned alongside the River Taff. I haven’t been able to uncover any information about their creator but I quite like the paddle steamer and lighthouse that have been incorporated into the design.