While visiting friends over the weekend they took us to somewhere that I have to admit that I’d never even heard of – The Sculpture Park near Churt in Surrey. It turned out to be a hidden gem.
As the name suggests the Sculpture Park is home to several hundred works of art which are set out a long a series of paths through a forest. It was a perfect day to be visiting as the walk was shaded by the trees, just what you need in this weather.
Unlike any public art gallery through all the works here are for sale. At the entrance you are presented with a folder that lists all the pieces along with artist, medium and the all important price. Which range from the affordable (£20 for a “tit box”) before very quickly getting beyond the purse of mere mortals such as myself.
It was interesting because, of course, art is subjective and the views of what one like and one disliked varied between each member of our party. It is fair to say though that some of it I felt was a load of rubbish and, for one piece, that was also literally true.
In the centre of the park was a small area where there was an artist in residence who was working with stone. He showed us one of his works, two giraffes with their necks intertwined, in stone and standing about 60cm tall. He said that it had taken him four weeks to do and we were amazed that something so intricate and beautiful could be done in such a short period of time. He then rather modestly told us that once one had the right tools and had been working with them a while it was easy. I know the likes of Gladwell think that you can do anything by putting in the (10,000) hours but I’m sorry I could never attain that level of skill. The great things was that he clearly loved what he was doing.
Given the prices of the pieces and the size (you’d need a pretty large garden for many of them) I couldn’t imagine that they’d change very often but our friends, who hadn’t been for a couple of years, were pleasantly surprised that there was much new for them to see.
It was a really enjoyable place to visit and we’ll certainly be back – especially when that much overdue lottery win comes through 😀
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