St James’s Churchyard, Sutton Cheney, West Midlands, CV13 0AG
The Welcome Building, 4 Glass Wharf. Temple Quarter, Bristol, BS2 0PS
Bazalgette Embankment, Blackfriars, London, EC4Y 0AF
The Optic, Peterhouse Technology Park, Cambridge CB1 9NJ
Tyburn Quay, Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2JH
For further details and images of these shortlisted sculptures see below
Vote for your favourite shortlisted public sculpture here
St James’s Churchyard, Sutton Cheney, West Midlands, CV13 0AG
The carved Portland Stone sculpture entitled ‘Calm Before the Storm’ is the first of five different artworks on a 12 mile sculpture trail organised by Broadbent Studio, which tells the story of the Battle of Bosworth, The Calm before the Storm is the first chapter, an image of the Plantagenet King Richard III (1452–1485), which is sited in the Churchyard of St James in Sutton Cheney where according to legend he prayed on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth.
This sculpture shows the contemplative Richard III just before the dramatic and highly significant day of battle in 1485, which led to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and the War of the Roses, and cast a 500 year shadow over English history.
Broadbent Studio, Calm Before the Storm, 2025, Portland stone on black granite, St James’s Churchyard, Sutton Cheney, West Midlands (photo: Broadbent Studio).
Our story opens with a moment of quiet, a time of reflection we have all known. Before any big event there is often such a moment, a time when acute tension can lead to extreme calm. This sculpture captures that moment of reflection and meditation.
Richard III prayed in the Church of St James, Sutton Cheney, on the eve of meeting Henry Tudor in battle at Bosworth Field. The lives of his soldiers and the future of the country lay heavy on his mind, yet in that moment of self-examination the king became a man unprotected by his office. A man kneeling before his maker, asking what the morrow would bring.
Broadbent Studio, Calm Before the Storm, 2025, Portland stone on black granite, St James’s Churchyard, Sutton Cheney, West Midlands (photo: Broadbent Studio).
Although this sculpture depicts a figure representing Richard III, it is not a portrait. The aim is to create an image which evokes his situation and the heavy responsibility resting on his shoulders, so we can identify with it.
A series of maquettes were modelled in wax by myself, before a scale plaster model was created. This model was used by the sculptor mason Ade Wright to help him carve the sculpture in Portland Stone. The sculpture was unveiled in August 2025, the 540th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth.
Stephen Broadbent
https://broadbent.studio/calmbeforethestorm
https://broadbent.studio/bosworth-1485
Broadbent Studio, Calm Before the Storm, 2025, Portland stone on black granite. St James’s Churchyard, Sutton Cheney, West Midlands (photo: Broadbent Studio).
The Welcome Building, 4 Glass Wharf. Temple Quarter, Bristol, BS2 0PS
The starting point for this sculpture was the contemporary Bristol myth of a crocodile spotted in the River Avon. I was drawn to its mix of humour, mystery and something more primal beneath the surface. Like all my projects, the ideas contained in this artwork evolved through the making of it.
Dorcas Casey, Crocodile, 2025, bronze. The Welcome Building, 4 Glass Wharf. Temple Quarter, Bristol (photo: D. Casey).
One of these themes was perpetual transformation. The crocodile sculptures went through so many physical states and materials, from malleable clay and flexible latex to plaster, silicone and bronze. This began to feel like an echo of the flux and regeneration of the city, particularly as the finished crocodile now sits right in the centre of Bristol, in a part of the city where change seems to be accelerating. It feels as though the city itself is shedding its skin, with ancient things being unearthed and old layers of Bristol momentarily revealed.
Dorcas Casey, Crocodile, 2025, bronze. The Welcome Building, 4 Glass Wharf. Temple Quarter, Bristol (photo: D. Casey).
Working with nearly 100 local people, we created the crocodile’s skin from their personal objects, marks and memories. It was a surprise to me that, in the finished sculpture, these objects took on the appearance of things that had been underwater for a long time, part-submerged in the silt of a river bed, briefly revealed before disappearing again.
Crocodiles are ancient symbols of resilience and regeneration, creatures that reside at the margins of the unknown, connecting our present with the deep past. It’s no wonder that stories about crocodiles still capture our imagination
Dorcas Casey
Dorcas Casey, Crocodile, 2025, bronze. The Welcome Building, 4 Glass Wharf. Temple Quarter, Bristol (photo: D. Casey).
Bazalgette Embankment, Blackfriars, London, EC4Y 0AF
Bazalgette Embankment is located on the North bank of the River Thames in London. It takes its name from the great Victorian engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette who designed and created the original embankment on the site in the 1860s.
Stages consists of five large monumental sculptures — a family of industrial scale, heavy cast-concrete forms — hand-made in a similar way to the Bazalgette’s Victorian sewers below. They are cast from moulds, like many a civic square statue. They are integrated into the design of the site, creating block views across the river.
Nathan Coley, Stages, 2025, Techcrete limestone concrete with black basalt and quartz aggregate. Bazalgette Embankment, Blackfriars, London (photo: Thierry Bal).
Stages does not tell a story or illustrate a history of any type. It is a group of non-figurative public sculptures. They do not commemorate anyone, they don’t stand to the greatness of anything, and are not for something. There is an invitation to sit on some of the five sculptures, and others look to be stood on if you can play the guitar. One or two may be used by skaters and cyclists for tricks, whilst one is designed simply to walk over, or to perhaps glance at from the bus. One uses water to poetically animate its surface.
Nathan Coley, Stages, 2025, Techcrete limestone concrete with black basalt and quartz aggregate. Bazalgette Embankment, Blackfriars, London (photo: © studio Nathan Coley).
When developing their placement, I was thinking of Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais (1889) — a commemorative bronze statue which he designed to be presented at ground level without a plinth, an attempt (he said) to eliminate the hierarchy between monument and beholder.
None of the ‘Stages’ are presented on plinths — they are the plinth, the wall, the handrail and the pavement. One of them starts as a wall to lean on, and becomes a sculpture to sit on. Another blocks your view whilst also creating a frame to take in the surrounding urban landscape. Collectively the sculptures ask if there is a place for abstraction in the public realm.
Nathan Coley
https://www.studionathancoley.com/
Commissioned by Tideway
Nathan Coley, Stages, 2025, Techcrete limestone concrete with black basalt and quartz aggregate. Bazalgette Embankment, Blackfriars, London (photo: Thierry Bal).
The Optic, Peterhouse Technology Park, Cambridge, CB1 9NJ
A key touchstone for the concept of Border Realm was its location, the city of Cambridge stretching out in one direction, and the softly undulating countryside in the other. Edgelands and between spaces have long been a source of inspiration within my work.
The technology and industry happening around the site also informed the conceptual and literal backbone of the work. Raw laser-cut steel, cut and stacked, layered, reaching upwards.
Nathaniel Rackowe, Border Realm, 2025, Corten steel. The Optic, Peterhouse Technology Park, Cambridge (photo: ©Nathaniel Rackowe).
The Optic, the new sleek building full of technology beside the artwork, became vital in its dialogue with the sculpture. Sitting next to it, its visual language is reflected in the artwork, the fins of the facade echoed in the array of steel forms within the sculpture, the scale and approach to materials balanced with the sculpture. Both artwork and the building have a vital honesty, allowing the viewer to unpick and make sense of the subtlety and variation of form they both present.
Nathaniel Rackowe, Border Realm, 2025, Corten steel. The Optic, Peterhouse Technology Park, Cambridge (photo: ©Nathaniel Rackowe).
The challenge for Border Realm was that not only did the artwork need to fulfil a specific conceptual criteria, it also had to be conceived and constructed in a way that maximised the use of its budget. I did this by creating an artwork that could be constructed on site from parts and materials produced by separate manufacturers, across the UK, all coming together on site and then being built by myself and a team of assistants. Running a project like this through my studio means I don’t have to rely on external sculpture fabricators and this gives me great control over finished artwork, meaning I can produce sculptures of scope and ambition that would be otherwise impossible.
I could not be happier with the completed artwork, and the way the form seems to shift and transform as you navigate around it.
Nathaniel Rackowe
Commissioned by British Land for The Optic
Nathaniel Rackowe, Border Realm, 2025, Corten steel. The Optic, Peterhouse Technology Park, Cambridge (photo: ©Nathaniel Rackowe).
Tyburn Quay, Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2JH
London is made of glimpses and glances. Mostly unaccountable stuff and Londoners have a little store of associations with their own life patterns. In the middle of London is the river, which of course got there first. Without it there would be no London. The invitation to memorialise the point where the river Tyburn meets the river Thames was a tricky thing for me to entertain. The striking thing about the edge of the river is that sense of being on a beach, at the edge of things, close to nature and a witness of the tides – the moon, time, sensuality, danger.
The configurations of ‘sacks’ which I proposed derived from my sense of dumb gravity – the fabric of the jute holding the dead weight of the mineral sand. In most respects this is a common place, bodily in feeling but usually used as an extemporising device – floods and edges. What I had not thought about was that it would be possible to play with ‘verisimilitude’ and that the sacks could be ‘translated’.
Richard Wentworth, Untitled (Sandbags), 2025, Cast bronze, 88 x 100 x 50 cm, Tyburn Quay, Victoria Embankment, London (photo: © Richard Wentworth; Image courtesy Lockbund Foundry).
The pride I share in this group of works is directly attached to the intelligence of Lockbund Foundry and the people who I have worked with. It is rare to be in the company of people with such an appetite for reproducing a physical condition in another, more obdurate, material. Bronze.
Perhaps none of us quite saw that the panniers on the nearby camel benches could be their coincity.
Richard Wentworth , London September 2026
Commissioned by Tideway
Richard Wentworth, Untitled (Sandbags), 2025, Cast bronze, 88 x 100 x 50 cm, Tyburn Quay, Victoria Embankment, London (photo: © Richard Wentworth; Image courtesy Lockbund Foundry).
Etruria Hall, Festival Way, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 5BQ
Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP18 0JH
North Verbena Gardens, St Peter’s Square, London W6 9AH
For further details and images of these shortlisted sculptures see below
Etruria Hall, Festival Way, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 5BQ
CAPO is a brick portrait head of Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) the English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist by Vincent Woropay (1951–2002) created in 1986 for the National Garden Festival at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent. After the festival it was relocated in 2009 to a prominent position beside Etruria Hall, the historic home of Wedgwood, which had been built to overlook Etruria Works, his manufactory.
Before demolition, Vincent Woropay, CAPO, red brick, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent (photo: Alliance Technical Services Ltd).
CAPO was demolished in 2023 by road developers who were given misinformation through a misunderstanding, and left as a pile of bricks.
The salvage operation left three pallets of extremely damaged bricks. Luckily, amongst these 40-year-old bricks were most of the face of CAPO with some damage that would require repair. Approximately 120 large bricks were missing.
Conservation and recovery led to intensive cleaning of each brick and removal of old mortar.
After demolition, Vincent Woropay, CAPO, red brick, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent (photo: Alliance Technical Services Ltd).
There were five main stages:
1. Recording the geometry of the original sculpture from photographs, drawings, and surviving fragments.
2. Sorting and cataloguing salvaged bricks.
3. Rebuilding the internal structure and brickwork to match the original form.
4. Integrating recovered original materials wherever practical.
5. Matching mortar, brick colour, texture, and detailing to preserve the sculpture’s
appearance.
From the photographs all bricks were numbered, and a dry run was started to try to identify what bricks went where and what bricks were missing. For this a timber frame was built to prop the sculpture.
The result was intended to retain both the distinctive character and the craftsmanship of Woropay’s original 1986 work. After conservation CAPO was installed in a safe location outside Etruria Hall.
After restoration, Vincent Woropay, CAPO, red brick, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent (photo: Alliance Technical Services Ltd).
Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP18 0JH
Cliveden Conservation has completed a major conservation programme on two historic marble fountains at Waddesdon Manor, National Trust. Both Grade II listed fountains, created circa 1720, are attributed to sculptor Giuliano Mozani (d. c.1734).
The Fountain of Triton and Nereids (the North Fountain), originally transported by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild from the Ducal Palace at Colorno, had a subdued water display, failing pipework, and sculptural extremities weakened by previously failed repairs.
Pre-conservation. Attrib. Giuliano Mozani (d. c.1734), The Fountain of Triton and Nereids, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (photo: Cliveden Conservation).
The South Fountain comprises nine marble sculptural elements: a central figure of Proserpina and Pluto, flanked by two hippocampi with cherubs and six surrounding nereids. Cliveden Conservation’s condition survey identified failed repairs, structural movement, open joints, fissures, and missing extremities across several figures.
Both projects began with a conservation clean to assess the surface condition. Conservators then raked out open joints and repointed with lime-based mortars carefully chosen for proven colour match and durability.
Pre-conservation. Attrib. Giuliano Mozani (d. c.1734), The Fountain of Pluto and Proserpina, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (photo: Cliveden Conservation).
Areas of movement on the North Fountain were stabilised by removing failed fixings and installing marine-grade stainless-steel dowels. Acoustic testing identified hollow areas within the rendered plinths, which were injected with hydraulic grout. Careful drilling allowed access to renew the internal pipework. Working alongside fountain engineer Mark Oliver, Cliveden Conservation restored the fountain’s original display, improving water circulation and reducing future maintenance needs.
Post-conservation. Attrib. Giuliano Mozani (d. c. 1734) , The Fountain of Triton and Nereids, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (photo: Cliveden Conservation).
On the South Fountain, conservators removed and cleaned sculptural elements requiring stabilising, removing failed adhesive and insufficient dowels, then reinstated them. Marble fragments and lost appendages collected over time by house staff were reattached, and corroded metalwork was treated and repainted to match the stone.
Both fountains’ condition and appearance have improved greatly, with their dramatic water displays now visible from across the gardens. Cliveden Conservation’s protective Winter Covers continue to protect the sculptures from freeze-thaw damage each winter, ensuring the fountains’ long-term sustainability.
Waddesdon Manor is managed by the Rothschild Foundation in partnership with the National Trust.
Post-conservation. Attrib. Giuliano Mozani (d. c. 1734) , The Fountain of Pluto and Proserpina, Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (photo: Cliveden Conservation).
North Verbena Gardens, St Peter’s Square, London W6 9AH
The Leaning Woman statue was commissioned by the London County Council (LCC) as part of its post-war effort to bring art to the public. The ‘Patronage of the Arts Scheme’ selected less well known artists and sites with good interaction between sculpture and the environment.
Czech artist Dr Karel Vogel (1897-1961) had arrived in Britain from Prague in 1938 and taught sculpture at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts. His pre-war work in Prague was classical but, like other artists of the time, he began experimenting with cheaper industrial materials including concrete. The Leaning Woman was cast in concrete around a metal armature.
Pre-conservation, Karel Vogel, Leaning Woman, 1959, North Verbena Gardens, St Peter’s Square, London (photo: Heritage of London Trust).
Designed to compensate local residents for the widening of the Great West Road in 1956, the statue’s floating appearance was intended to link ‘neo-classical calm with the swiftness of the fast modern world’. To create the work, Vogel’s model – another émigré from Eastern Europe – leant on a broom in his studio. The Leaning Woman was one of Vogel’s final works.
After years of deterioration, the statue was put on the Heritage at Risk Register in 2017. Following a campaign led by the Heritage of London Trust (HOLT) and with the support of the local community and Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the restoration was completed in 2024 by Sally Strachey Conservation. Conservation included cleaning and poulticing, addressing the corrosion of the iron armature and treating exposed metal, trials and testing of appropriate mortar repairs, repairing cracks and open seams, restoring the concrete surface and an application of Keim mineral paint to offer the sculpture the best protection from water ingress and further corrosion.
Through HOLT’s Proud Places programme over 750 young people including children from alternative provision schools and young refugee groups were involved in the restoration project, with heritage skills training and creative workshops
The statue’s landscape setting was improved and in 2025 the Leaning Woman was removed from the Heritage at Risk Register.
Post-conservation, Karel Vogel, Leaning Woman, 1959, North Verbena Gardens, St Peter’s Square, London (photo: Heritage of London Trust).