The Commemorative Sculptures
The two sculptures commissioned by the Tewkesbury Battlefield Society to mark the site of one of the crucial battles of the Wars of the Roses have now been erected. They also celebrate the historic character of the town of Tewkesbury. A copy of the leaflet produced by the Society for the occasion can be downloaded from our Members Area.
They have been placed on and near the Stonehill roundabout, where the A38 Gloucester Road meets the new Tewkesbury relief road on the southern edge of the town. It was from here the Yorkist forces would have had their first sight of their Lancastrian opponents on the morning of the Battle.
The title ‘The Arrivall’ is taken from the title of an abbreviated account of Edward IV’s recovery of the English throne from Henry VI in 1471. The opposing armies are each represented by a single monumentally-scaled oak sculpture.
Victor and Vanquished
The Yorkists are represented by a 5 meter high horse carrying a knight who holds an 8 meter long stainless steel lance topped with a pennant. This piece is named Victor and is located on the roundabout.
The second piece, Vanquished, is a riderless horse and has a similar lance resting across its back. It stands on the opposite verge south of the roundabout and faces the mounted knight. Its head is bowed and represents the defeated Lancastrian army.
The sculptures have been constructed using selected boughs of green English Oak, their natural bends and forks recreating the limbs and outline of the horses. These boughs also reflect the timbers seen in many of the historic buildings in Tewkesbury.
The artists who created these pieces are Philip Bews and Diane Gorvin who live and work in Coleford in the Forest of Dean. Whilst working in Cheshire, they completed many public commissions in the North West, including Liverpool and Manchester. After producing several sculptures for the London Docklands redevelopment, they have created works in the South West, South East, Midlands and Wales and have also worked in Hong Kong, France, Australia, Sweden and Canada.
The project has been running since 1997, beginning with a design competition funded by the Town Council. There then followed slow ploughing through a morass of safety, highways and planning regulations. After final approval was given in August 2011 the next challenge was tackled – finding the funding to make these sculptures a reality. Due to the protracted planning process, costs had escalate from the original £30,000. But this had also given the society time to raised enough money, through numerous events, to get the work started. Then thanks to the continued persistence of the membership in fundraising, generous donations from charitable organisations and ‘in kind’ contributions from local businesses the final target was achieved giving us all a lasting memorial to an historic event and a new land mark for Tewkesbury.
A major contribution came from the ‘1471 Fraternity’, who donated £14.71, £147.10 or £1471.00 to the project. Their names are recorded here.
The “Victor” at sunset, a photograph by Jack Boskett.
The Story of Making the ‘Arrivall’
The 'Arrivall' Battle of Tewkesbury commemorative sculpture progress report 1. Phil Bews, the sculptor collecting and roughly forming the green oak boughs.
Second Arrivall sculpture progress report. Fundraising at Tewkesbury CAMRA Beer Festival. Phil finding a knight in an oak tree.
The Arrival Scuplture Progress report 3: Fundraising at the Boathouse in Tewkesbury and finding horses legs in oak trees in the Forest of Dean.
'Arrivall' commemorative sculpture progress report, featuring chainsawing the horse body parts and designing the pennants.
Victory is rapidly taking shape in the rain, showing the scale of the piece. Tewkesbury's Medieval Festival opens for the twenty ninth time, with Robert Hardy quoting Henry V.
Six months into the making of the Arrivall sees a contrast between Phil deftly shaping the oak limbs with a chain saw and the very high-tech cutting of the pennants by Kenard Engineering with CAD and high velocity water jets. Fascinating stuff!
Phil explains the techniques used for securing the horses limbs to the body, plus a plug for our barn dance on 13th October.
Victory is completed, with a lesson in the anatomy of horse's heads, and more rain.
The preparations at the roundabout have started, clearing the brushwood away from the site before the birds start nesting. The next, maybe the last, big fundraising event is being prepared for, including the auction of the unique Tewkesbury gospels. Simon Chorley, the auctioneer, is discussing values.
'Topping out' the first figure. The fundraising team visit the construction site, most for the first time, to view 'Victory' before Phil removes the head and tilts the knight to move it out of the construction dock to make way for 'defeat'.
In the late autumn sunshine, Phil is putting the finishing touches to the rear of Vanquished and preparing to work on the head. The completion is getting close….
Completion of 'Vanquished' is very close, as Phil works oak boughs into the form of a head, assembles it and fits the head to the horse. The end of the making of the horses is getting close.
Vanquished's 'crowning glory'; his mane, is made and fitted. This is the last job in making the horses. All the other work now is concerned with metal; the lances and the foot brackets; and installation.
Attention now turns to the work needed at the roundabout to prepare for the Arrivall. The trees and shrubs are given a crew cut by Tewkesbury's grounds team in preparation, to give a better view and a more controlled shrubbery. It's nice to think that the three oaks which are now standing proud in the centre of the roundabout might be the source of timber to refurbish the sculpture, when it needs it, in a couple of hundred years’ time after the manner of Japanese temples.
The oak work is finished and waiting for transport. In the meantime, there is lots of activity in Tewkesbury preparing the site for the sculptures and at Grail Engineering in Cinderford, preparing the lances and pennants.
The day we'd all been waiting for! Sunday May 4 2014, the 543rd anniversary of the Battle of Tewkesbury. This was the day when the commemorative sculpture was dedicated by the Vicar of Tewkesbury Abbey and handed over to the Borough Mayor by Robert Hardy; our Patron.