Lulworth Castle & Park commissions - exciting new stone sculpture

Lulworth Castle & Park has commisioned an exciting new stone carving to be created over the next six months, of a Lulworth Skipper butterfly emerging from Portland Stone. The stone is in the North East Tower of the Castle and every Sunday the ‘artist in residence’ will be offering visitors a unique opportunity to see the stone being worked and allowing them to witness the transformation from a block of quarried stone into a stunning stone sculpture, which will be displayed in the Castle Park for all to see, once it has been completed.

Paul Pinnock, Lulworth Castle & Park Manager said “It was an idea that came from the team at Lulworth Castle, who wanted to add another dimension to the visitor enjoyment and decided that an ‘artist in residence’ would be a potentially popular activity.”

He continues “It was then easy to progress the idea of a creation in stone which led to a natural link to the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust, and it seemed at that point everthing naturally fell into place.”

Hannah Sofaer, one of two ‘artists in residence’ from the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust said “The inspiration for the carving is the life cycle of a butterfly emerging from Portland stone, where its wings are silohuetted against the sky with finely carved detail. There will be a carved spiral movement that encourages people to walk around the stone, so that they experience the transformation of the form. The stone already suggests a windswept grass movement and the Lulworth Skipper’s life cycle will be portrayed through four stages; from eggs to caterpillar to pupae and then to butterfly, all relying on the stems of Tor grass for their inhabitance throughout the piece.”

She continues “We have started carving with a hammer and chisel, which is called a point, its like drawing with a pencil. During May we will be following a process of roughing out, where we start to find the forms in the stone. The sculpture will be finished by September when we intend to move it into the grounds of the castle to be mounted on a section of Portland Roach from the Jurassic period, bringing an ancient seabed together with the present seascape as seen in the distance.”

The selected stone is freshly quarried stone from the base bed of Inmosthay Quarry and was moved into the Castle with rollers, wooden blocks and wedges in a combined effort overseen by Ralph Stone. Mr Stone is a quarryman who’s skills have been handed down through twelve generations of famillies, and who have quarried stone on the island since the time of the building of St Paul’s Cathedral, by Sir Christopher Wren in the 17^th Century. Inmosthay Quarry takes it’s name from it’s origin which was once a field where the most hay grew.

Paul Crabtree added “Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust is an artist led organsation formed during a sculpture symposium in 1983 in Tout Quarry, when over 50 artists developed proposals and maquettes for work created in response to the quarry enviornment. Our work gave back to the quarry where in the past so much has been taken away for great buildings and established another layer of time through educational vantage points where sculpture, geology, ecology and industry meet.”

He continues “now a well known Sculpture Park and Nature Reserve, Tout Quarry a 250 year old historic quarry environment has been saved from further mineral extraction where we run popular stone carving and sculpture courses in an open-air workshop during the summer each year. These courses have provided thousands of people with an opportunity to create new carvings, while learning the skills of carving and working with Portland Stone in its place of orgin.”

The Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust have developed a new model of regeneration for the future of quarry envirionments that brings together geologists, artists, ecologists, quarrymen and the community, working across a range of discilpines including environmental design, landscape architecture and education. Their designs for new uses include a ‘walk through time’ where examples of geology revealed through the quarrying process are reinstated along a pathway of 600 meters. Each footstep represents 250,000 years, and the period since the industrial revolution is represented by only 5 or 6 millimeters. Since then we have used an estimated one third of the earths resources. To address the issue of sustainability the Trust has established the Drill Hall as a Centre for Stone on Portland that encourages young designers, architects, landscape architects and artists and to apply the principle of sustainability in their practice. The project informs new uses of stone through, the shaping of our built environment, and the regeneration of our natural enviornment, through the creation of new features and habitats to be colonised by wildlife and nature.

Once the Lulworth Skipper sculpture is complete it will be transported from the Castle Tower to a location in the Castle Park for visitors to experience.

Visitors can currently see the stone sculpture in situ in the Castle Tower throughout the week (Sunday to Friday) with the stone sculpture being worked on by the ‘artist in residence’ every Sunday from 10.30am to 6pm, until September.

Parking is free. Follow the brown signs to Lulworth Castle, which is just off the A352 between Wool and Wareham on the B 3070. The Castle and Park are open to the Public Sun to Fri. Closed Sat. Admission charge: Adult £8.50, Child £4, Concession £7, Family £25(2 Adults + 3 children) £16.50(1 Adult + 3 children) (admission prices excludes special events including Camp Bestival, Open Air Cinema and Country House Fair).