Wordless Wednesday is a simple blog post featuring a photo. It seeks to convey a message, but speaks for itself without using words. Mrs P took this photo of a Scottish Clydesdale horse on the Ford and Etal estate in Northumberland in 2024.
At last, after a gap of nearly four years due to the Covid pandemic, we’re heading back to Scotland. Our final destination is Orkney – our favourite place in the whole world – but during the long drive north there’s time to stop off at some other Scottish highlights. And those highlights don’t come much higher than the Kelpies, reputed to be the largest equine sculptures in the world
Dating from 2013/14, the monumental steel sculptures by artist Andy Scott stand 30 metres (100 feet) high, and weigh in at more than 300 tonnes each. They are made up of an extraordinary 34,566 separate pieces, including 7,918 huck bolts (whatever they are!) and 928 steel skin plates. The pieces took a whole year to manufacture, and the final assembly of the sculptures took 90 days.
According to Scottish folk mythology, a kelpie is a dangerous shape-shifting creature that lives in water but can also appear on land – close to a river, of course – as a grey or white pony. In designing his sculptures Andy Scott imagined two Kelpies emerging from a river in the form of horses. His sketch (below) shows how the now familiar heads of his two creations relate to the whole animals.
Folklore tells us that children in particular are attracted to these cute equine critters. But therein lurks a terrifying danger, for if anyone tries to ride one, the animal’s sticky magical hide will not allow them to dismount! The Kelpie then carries its victim into the river and eats him. Worse still, Kelpies are very sneaky and may also appear in human form, materializing as pretty young women in an attempt to lure lustful men to their deaths – see below how this played out in the gratuitously salacious imagination of artist Herbert James Draper (1863 – 1920). Or they might take on the form of a human mugger, laying in wait by the river until a passer-by is close enough to ambush, capture and kill.
Fortunately Kelpies have an Achilles heel, a weak spot that enables humans to subdue them. To overcome a Kelpie you must grab hold of its bridle, at which point it will fall under your command. Captive Kelpies are prized for their immense strength and endurance. Having been transformed from malevolent spirits into compliant draught animals, they can be harnessed to safely carry passengers or to haul vast loads.
Scott’s sculptures are modelled on a real life beast-of-burden, the iconic Clydesdale horse. These magnificent draught animals played a key role in the early days of Scotland’s industrial revolution, hauling barges and wagons laden with raw materials and manufactured goods to where they were needed. To ensure his sculptures captured the essence of Clydesdale horses Scott worked closely with two local animals called Duke and Baron (see below), and is reported to have developed a close relationship with them.
Helix Park near Falkirk in the central Scottish lowlands, where Scott’s sculptures are to be found, is no stranger to Clydesdales. The Forth and Clyde Canal runs through the Park, and Clydesdale horses must once have been a familiar sight trudging wearily along its banks hauling monstrously heavy barges. Scott’s sculpture pays due homage to their heroic efforts, as well as reflecting a fascinating part of Scottish folklore.
Andy Scott has done a great job, creating two stunning, monumental sculptures that are deeply embedded in Scottish history and mythology. As well as viewing them from afar, this time we signed up for a special tour which took us inside one of them and enabled us to better appreciate the huge creative and engineering effort that went into making these vast sculptures. I’m so pleased that we broke our journey north to re-acquaint ourselves with the Kelpies, which are unquestionably amongst my favourite pieces of public art in the UK.
Although its primary focus is on the preservation and display of historic buildings from South-East England, the Weald and Downland Living Museum offers other fascinating insights into the lives of ordinary people in times past. A notable highlight of our visit last October was to be able to watch a team of horses ploughing a field that forms part of the Museum’s land. Only a few decades ago such a sight would have been totally unremarkable anywhere in rural England, but these days draught horses have little if any role in country life beyond their participation in ploughing competitions that hark back nostalgically to the pre-industrial world.
The term “draught” horse is derived from the Old English word dragan, meaning “to haul” or “to draw”. They are also referred to as carthorses, work horses or heavy horses. And these terms, I guess, tells us all we need to know. Back in the day, when heavy loads needed to moved or agricultural land had to be worked, the horse was England’s go-to beast of burden. Even as the Industrial Revolution started to kick in, horses toiled along towpaths hauling canal barges laden with raw materials and manufactured goods.
In these modern times, when internal combustion and diesel engines rule the roost, it’s difficult to imagine a moment when we depended not on them but instead on the humble horse. The Weald and Downland Living Museum’s mission is to celebrate and remind us of the world we have lost, and watching three magnificent horses going about their business did just that.
The Museum’s horses are Percherons, a breed of draught horse that originated in western France. Usually grey or black in colour, Percherons are sturdy animals known for their intelligence and willingness to work. They were originally bred as war horses, but later became sought-after animals for agricultural work and hauling heavy goods. As well as ploughing, the horses we encountered also help out with a number of other seasonal farming tasks. These include sowing, haymaking and harvesting, as well as timber-extraction from the Museum’s woodland.
The Museum’s Percherons seemed content in their work, and the guy leading them clearly cared deeply for their welfare. He was practising for a ploughing competition the next day, and although I’m no expert it seemed from what I saw that he and his horsey team were in with a good shout!
In addition to its draught horses, the Museum has several fine examples of historic horse-drawn vehicles. These include a spectacularly colourful gypsy caravan dating from the late 19th century, and a far more humble “living caravan” which would have been home to labourers who travelled the countryside in search of opportunities for paid work.
Like the rest of the exhibits on display at the Weald and Downland Living Museum, the Percherons and horse-drawn vehicles we saw there offered fascinating insights into a world that is almost beyond comprehension from our comfortable, 21st century perspective. I strongly recommend a visit!
Now I'm 64 