I apologise in advance for how wintry these photos look. It will probably not surprise you that we actually took these in the spring-iest month of the year. That’s right, it was May! As is often the case, the U.K. is reticent to appear stereotypical, and prefers to suprise its inhabitants, and visitors alike, with a kind of weather lottery. Woke up hot and decided to wear shorts? Ha! Jokes on you, because a weather system is currently rolling in thick banks of fog, and rain clouds between you and the sun like a restraining order from hell.
Wearing a coat and a hat because yesterday was chilly? Ha! The British weather will turn its mercurial dial up to ‘FRY’, and you will duly evaporate in a sweat-,mist.
Anyway, “Who are these eerie fellows?”, I hear you ask. These guys are part of a 100-strong group of cast-iron statues that stare out into the Irish Sea, daring the cursed waters to submerge them again and again. The Irish Sea duly obliges as it rises and dunks them one by one until only the furthest up the shore remain. Even those succumb to the sea’s advances at high tides. Hence our friend, below, caught with sand in his cast iron bits.
It sounds like a cop-out to say that you really have to be there to get an impression of the scale of this art installation. 100 of these 650 pound (295kg) statues are spread over a three-kilometre section of beach, so capturing them on single photos does it no justice.
It really is worth a look, and if the statues don’t do it for you, Crosby beach is excellent for blowing away cobwebs and waking yourself up!
Anthony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’, Mariners Road, Crosby Beach, Liverpool, Merseyside L23 6SX
North West Day Trips 