Sculpture Blazes a Trail

The train journey back from London, which was pleasant enough already, became more so when the buffet-bar operator announced his wares over the speakers. He had devised a poem and, although it was rudimentary – rhyming “snack” with “track” and “the price is nifty at three pounds fifty” – it was a welcome act of creativity in a situation where none was expected. Moreover, if you agree with Marianne Moore that poetry is “the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads,” the job was well done: there are toads aplenty in Virgin Trains’ buffet bars, however wonderful poetry may imagine them.

Reality hit us, however, when we arrived home to find that our broadband was broken. The subsequent tedious procedure will be familiar, no doubt, to many of you. In this case it comprised the ISP trying to prove that we had unplugged something until, eventually – after two hours on the phone – it conceded that the router was faulty: which left us with the prospect of a weekend (at least) of cadging free wi-fi around town. “Not the end of the world,” I said, “just a return to life as it was Before Broadband, let’s says BB minus10.” And so it was, in this rediscovered spirit of freedom from the shackles of the PC, that we decided to take a Sunday hike from our front door northwards to Bury, following the river Irwell and the Irwell Sculpture Trail.

Old-fashioned luck was on our side, delivering a cloudless sky and a stiff headwind from the Arctic to keep us alert. We packed a picnic and set off early, the days being short at this time of year. The first point of interest, a pictorial mosaic panel set into the footpath of a tiny park in Salford, was in a state of disintegration, despite having been renovated not long ago. Across the road, however, a bronze representation of a giant sycamore seed stood proud and intact, possibly because of its situation in a small square overlooked by a cluster of smart new town houses. Such are the challenges that face public art installations in the urban environment. Further on, we came to the historic Peel Park, established by public subscription in 1846. It had since fallen into disrepair – and disrepute – but, in 2015, acquired a new lease of life with a £1.6 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This money enabled not only the renovation of the park but also the recruitment of a (single) park-keeper. It did not run, however, to the upkeep of the sculptures, one of which had been tarmacked over, the other missing-presumed-stolen, it having been made of steel.

Further upriver, however, the landscape becomes less populated and the sculptures show fewer signs of violation by vandals. Perhaps it is too far off their beat. In places rough woodlands stand where once there were industrial works or small-holdings; there are extensive playing fields at Kearsley; and, at Clifton, a ‘Country Park’ occupies former coal fields. In fact, there were times during the walk when the sights and sounds of the city conurbation were almost absent and where we were at risk of getting lost in the bush. “Keep the sun on your left shoulder and the wind in your face,” I had to remind myself.

We never made it as far as Bury: the way was winding and took longer than expected, and tiredness began to take precedence over diversions to sculptures that were off the beaten track. When we spotted a station at Radcliffe, we called it a day and hopped aboard a tram amid the throngs of people heading for the Christmas markets in the City Centre. There are 25 more miles of the Trail to explore and, while it may not be an idyll of objets d’art positioned tastefully in landscapes of unaffected natural grace, it does engage the mind and senses with the historic impacts – both destructive and creative – of humans on the landscape. In this respect, there is a kind of poetry to be found in this garden of toads.