Angel of the South
Encyclopedia
The White Horse at Ebbsfleet, formerly the Ebbsfleet Landmark, colloquially the Angel of the South, is a planned white horse statue to be built in the Ebbsfleet Valley
in Kent
, England
. Designed by Mark Wallinger
to faithfully resemble a thoroughbred
horse, but at 33 times life size, the colossal sculpture will be 50 metres (164 ft) high.
Taller than the Angel of the North
in Gateshead and Dream
in St. Helens, as a highly visible piece of public art, it is intended to highlight the Ebbsfleet redevelopment area and the Ebbsfleet International railway station
in particular. It will be visible from both the A2 road
and High Speed 1 railway line, which cross each other nearby.
After a design 'competition', Wallinger's vision of a white horse was selected by a panel of self appointed representatives from each of the three founding patrons / developers of the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Ltd (ELP Ltd) - London and Continental Railways
, Land Securities and Eurostar
- . Four other art advisors were also appointed to the panel by ELP Ltd. Planning permission for the structure was granted by Gravesham
Council on 15 April 2010.
Though originally estimated at £2 million, costs are now estimated to be £12 million according to Ben Ruse, a spokesman for the project based at London and Continental Railways offices in London. .
The project is intended to be privately funded. As of February 2008, in excess of £1 million had been committed to the project by the founding patrons (of ELP Ltd) from London and Continental Railways who are "actively promoting the development of regeneration opportunities in Ebbsfleet" , Land Securities "the UK's leading Real Estate Investment Trust" and from Eurostar.
's Angel of the North
at Gateshead
(with a stipulation that it be at least twice as wide and high, and visible from 20 miles away), and to mark one of six main "gateways" to London, hence the informal name Angel of the South being adopted early on for the formally named Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Ltd.
faithfully accurate representation of a thoroughbred racehorse in all but scale".
near Springhead Road, Northfleet
, in a site designated as the proposed "linear park". The sculpture is intended to highlight the Ebbsfleet Valley
regeneration area, and Ebbsfleet International railway station
in particular, in a similar manner to the Angel of the North
in Gateshead and Dream
in St. Helens.
From this location it will be visible from both road traffic on the A2 road
, and from the High Speed 1 railway line, used by both Eurostar
international services and domestic high speed services.
station at Ebbsfleet International, near Land Securities' Springhead Park residential development) had been announced. A shortlist of 5 was chosen on 28 January 2008 (consisting of Mark Wallinger
, Rachel Whiteread
, Richard Deacon, Christopher le Brun
, and Daniel Buren
), with press coverage noting the omission of Gormley. The artists were given 3 months from then to produce their proposals, which were displayed to the public from May 2008 at Bluewater Shopping Centre. Le Brun produced a winged disc; Buren a tower of 5 cubes; Deacon a stack of 26 different steel polyhedra
; Wallinger a realistic sculpture of a horse, in honour of Horsa; and Whiteread a plaster cast of a house's interior atop an artificially-created mountain. In September 2008 the shortlist was reduced to three designs: Deacon's, Buren's and Wallinger's. The competition triggered public interest, and was the subject of a satirical series of cartoons in Steve Bell
's If...
series between 4 and 8 February 2008, and in May 2008. Locally, however, it has been the subject of apathy or even hostility.
The sculpture's completion was planned to occur before domestic high-speed services to Kent
begin on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 2009, in good time for the 2012 Olympics.
has long been an ancient symbol of Kent
, and white horse hill figures are a common feature of England as a whole. The Angel of the South has been referred to as both the White Horse of Ebbsfleet and the White Horse of Kent, however the White horse of Kent
that is commonly used as a symbol of Kent is more correctly depicted as a prancing (or rampant in heraldry) white horse
, rearing up on its hind legs, which can also be referred to as Invicta, which is the motto of Kent
. Kent County Council initially criticised the design for not depicting the horse as prancing like Invicta. A proposal resembling Invicta was submitted by Kent County Council in response to Wallinger's entry, but was rejected by judges.
Ebbsfleet Valley
Ebbsfleet Valley is a new town and redevelopment area in Kent, South East England; and part of the Thames Gateway. It is located south west of Gravesend.It is named after the valley of the Ebbsfleet River, which it straddles...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Designed by Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger is a British artist, best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo , and State Britain , a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He won the Turner Prize in 2007...
to faithfully resemble a thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...
horse, but at 33 times life size, the colossal sculpture will be 50 metres (164 ft) high.
Taller than the Angel of the North
Angel of the North
The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead,formerly County Durham, England.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, standing tall, with wings measuring across...
in Gateshead and Dream
Dream (sculpture)
Dream is a sculpture and a piece of public art by Jaume Plensa in Sutton, St Helens, Merseyside. Costing approximately £1.8m the funds were secured through The Big Art Project in coordination with the Arts Council England, The Art Fund and Channel 4....
in St. Helens, as a highly visible piece of public art, it is intended to highlight the Ebbsfleet redevelopment area and the Ebbsfleet International railway station
Ebbsfleet International railway station
Ebbsfleet International railway station is a railway station in Ebbsfleet Valley, in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, 10 miles outside the eastern boundary of Greater London, England. It is near Dartford and the Bluewater shopping centre to the west and Gravesend to the east. Ebbsfleet International...
in particular. It will be visible from both the A2 road
A2 road (Great Britain)
The A2 is a major road in southern England, connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover in Kent. This route has always been of importance as a connection between the British capital of London and sea trade routes to Continental Europe...
and High Speed 1 railway line, which cross each other nearby.
After a design 'competition', Wallinger's vision of a white horse was selected by a panel of self appointed representatives from each of the three founding patrons / developers of the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Ltd (ELP Ltd) - London and Continental Railways
London and Continental Railways
-History:Created at the time of the privatisation of British Rail it bid for and won the contract from the UK government in 1996 to build and operate High Speed 1 between London and the Channel Tunnel...
, Land Securities and Eurostar
Eurostar
Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....
- . Four other art advisors were also appointed to the panel by ELP Ltd. Planning permission for the structure was granted by Gravesham
Gravesham
Gravesham is a local government district and borough in North West Kent, England. It has borders with the River Thames to the north; the City of Rochester and Medway to the east; the borough of Tonbridge and Malling ; and the boroughs of Sevenoaks and Dartford to the west.Its council is based at...
Council on 15 April 2010.
Though originally estimated at £2 million, costs are now estimated to be £12 million according to Ben Ruse, a spokesman for the project based at London and Continental Railways offices in London. .
The project is intended to be privately funded. As of February 2008, in excess of £1 million had been committed to the project by the founding patrons (of ELP Ltd) from London and Continental Railways who are "actively promoting the development of regeneration opportunities in Ebbsfleet" , Land Securities "the UK's leading Real Estate Investment Trust" and from Eurostar.
Background
Prior to any design being announced, the sculpture was planned as a counterpart to Antony GormleyAntony Gormley
Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site...
's Angel of the North
Angel of the North
The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead,formerly County Durham, England.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, standing tall, with wings measuring across...
at Gateshead
Gateshead
Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...
(with a stipulation that it be at least twice as wide and high, and visible from 20 miles away), and to mark one of six main "gateways" to London, hence the informal name Angel of the South being adopted early on for the formally named Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Ltd.
Design
The sculpture will be made from concrete laid over a steel primary and secondary inner frame. It will be supported by 25 metres (82 ft) deep concrete foundations. At 33 times life size, it will measure 50 metres (164 ft) vertically from the ground to the tip of the ears, 40 metres (131.2 ft) to the top of the back, and 56 metres (183.7 ft) horizontally, from nose to tail. It will be "afaithfully accurate representation of a thoroughbred racehorse in all but scale".
Location
The sculpture will be located at SpringheadSpringhead
Springhead lies at the source of the River Ebbsfleet, just southwest of the Gravesend suburban conurbations. Springhead forms one of the major quarters of the Ebbsfleet Valley development, with housing and the associated facilities now under construction...
near Springhead Road, Northfleet
Northfleet
Northfleet is a town in the Borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. Its name is derived from North creek , and the settlement on the shore of the River Thames adjacent to Gravesend was known as Norfluet in the Domesday Book, and Northflet in 1201...
, in a site designated as the proposed "linear park". The sculpture is intended to highlight the Ebbsfleet Valley
Ebbsfleet Valley
Ebbsfleet Valley is a new town and redevelopment area in Kent, South East England; and part of the Thames Gateway. It is located south west of Gravesend.It is named after the valley of the Ebbsfleet River, which it straddles...
regeneration area, and Ebbsfleet International railway station
Ebbsfleet International railway station
Ebbsfleet International railway station is a railway station in Ebbsfleet Valley, in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, 10 miles outside the eastern boundary of Greater London, England. It is near Dartford and the Bluewater shopping centre to the west and Gravesend to the east. Ebbsfleet International...
in particular, in a similar manner to the Angel of the North
Angel of the North
The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead,formerly County Durham, England.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, standing tall, with wings measuring across...
in Gateshead and Dream
Dream (sculpture)
Dream is a sculpture and a piece of public art by Jaume Plensa in Sutton, St Helens, Merseyside. Costing approximately £1.8m the funds were secured through The Big Art Project in coordination with the Arts Council England, The Art Fund and Channel 4....
in St. Helens.
From this location it will be visible from both road traffic on the A2 road
A2 road (Great Britain)
The A2 is a major road in southern England, connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover in Kent. This route has always been of importance as a connection between the British capital of London and sea trade routes to Continental Europe...
, and from the High Speed 1 railway line, used by both Eurostar
Eurostar
Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....
international services and domestic high speed services.
Design shortlisting
Gormley and other artists were invited to admit designs on 22 May 2007, by which time the site (a hill outside the new EurostarEurostar
Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....
station at Ebbsfleet International, near Land Securities' Springhead Park residential development) had been announced. A shortlist of 5 was chosen on 28 January 2008 (consisting of Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger is a British artist, best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo , and State Britain , a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He won the Turner Prize in 2007...
, Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
, Richard Deacon, Christopher le Brun
Christopher le Brun
Christopher Le Brun is known primarily as a painter. He is also a dedicated printmaker, for which he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1996 , coincidentally the year in which he made his first sculpture. He studied painting at the Slade School of Art and Chelsea School of Art...
, and Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren is a French conceptual artist.- Work :Sometimes classified as an abstract minimalist Buren is known best for using regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate the visual surface and architectural space, notably historical, landmark architecture.Among his chief concerns is the...
), with press coverage noting the omission of Gormley. The artists were given 3 months from then to produce their proposals, which were displayed to the public from May 2008 at Bluewater Shopping Centre. Le Brun produced a winged disc; Buren a tower of 5 cubes; Deacon a stack of 26 different steel polyhedra
Polyhedron
In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...
; Wallinger a realistic sculpture of a horse, in honour of Horsa; and Whiteread a plaster cast of a house's interior atop an artificially-created mountain. In September 2008 the shortlist was reduced to three designs: Deacon's, Buren's and Wallinger's. The competition triggered public interest, and was the subject of a satirical series of cartoons in Steve Bell
Steve Bell (cartoonist)
Steve Bell is an English political cartoonist, whose work appears in The Guardian and other publications. He is known for his left-wing views and distinctive caricatures.-Early life:...
's If...
If... (comic)
If... is an ongoing political comic strip which appears in the UK newspaper The Guardian, written and drawn by Steve Bell since its creation in 1982.-Style:...
series between 4 and 8 February 2008, and in May 2008. Locally, however, it has been the subject of apathy or even hostility.
White Horse figure selected
On 10 February 2009 the BBC announced that the winner was Wallinger's realistic sculpture of a horse. The statue is modeled on one of Wallinger's own racehorses "Riviera Red"; which coincidentally won the 4.20 race at Lingfield on 10 February 2009, the same day that the artist's sculpture won the competition. Riviera Red is trained by L Montague Hall.The sculpture's completion was planned to occur before domestic high-speed services to Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
begin on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 2009, in good time for the 2012 Olympics.
Planning permission granted
A planning application was submitted until to Gravehsam Borough Council's planning committee in January 2010, who voted unanimously to grant planning permission for the structure on 14 April 2010.White horse of Kent
The white horseWhite Horse
- Mythology and symbolism :* White horse * White horse of Kent, a heraldic symbol- Coat colors :* Gray , most common white horse coat only becoming white at maturity* White , horse coat/skin mostly lacking in pigmentation...
has long been an ancient symbol of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, and white horse hill figures are a common feature of England as a whole. The Angel of the South has been referred to as both the White Horse of Ebbsfleet and the White Horse of Kent, however the White horse of Kent
White horse of Kent
The White horse of Kent, or the White Horse Rampant, is a symbol of Kent, a county in South East England.The figure of the prancing white horse can also be referred to as Invicta, which is the motto of Kent.-Origin:...
that is commonly used as a symbol of Kent is more correctly depicted as a prancing (or rampant in heraldry) white horse
White Horse
- Mythology and symbolism :* White horse * White horse of Kent, a heraldic symbol- Coat colors :* Gray , most common white horse coat only becoming white at maturity* White , horse coat/skin mostly lacking in pigmentation...
, rearing up on its hind legs, which can also be referred to as Invicta, which is the motto of Kent
Invicta (motto)
Invicta was used in Roma invicta meaning "Unconquered Rome" and is the motto of the county of Kent, England.-Theories of origin:...
. Kent County Council initially criticised the design for not depicting the horse as prancing like Invicta. A proposal resembling Invicta was submitted by Kent County Council in response to Wallinger's entry, but was rejected by judges.
External links
- ebbsfleetlandmark.com - official website