Director Chris Knowles | ||
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Location Aston, Oswestry, Shropshire, England Type Indoor/outdoor sculpture park
Forge
Visitors centre | ||
The British Ironworks Centre & Shropshire Sculpture Park is a forge, silversmiths and bric-a-brac shop near to Oswestry in Shropshire, England. The centre is famous for its safari park of sculptures (mostly in metal) and its gorilla made entirely of spoons. The centre is located on the A5 road 3.1 miles (5 km) south east of Oswestry town.
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On site, the centre has a shop, café, forge, silversmiths, clock repairer, sculpture park and falconry.
History
In 2013, the centre was asked to create four iron pavilions to celebrate the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. The order came from Buckingham Palace and the pavilions would be used as entrances to the celebrations being held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.
The centre have also handcrafted steel forget-me-nots for a charity fundraiser for a local hospice. 1,000 of the steel flowers were unveiled in April 2016 and a hasty re-order was required when they first batch of 1,000 sold out within hours.
Spoons Gorilla
In 2013, illusionist Uri Geller commissioned the centre to create a 12 ft (3.7 m) high gorilla from spoons sent in from around the world. Initially 6,000 spoons were donated from across the globe including one that used to belong to Winston Churchill. When the project was complete the final tally was 40,000 spoons from as far afield as China, India, Kenya, Armenia and Tahiti . Whilst Geller commissioned the piece, it was funded by the Ironworks Centre.
The gorilla sculpture was created by Alfie Bradley over 5 months and was unveiled by Prince Michael of Kent in 2014. The sculpture was taken to Uri Geller's house in the same year, but is now on display back at the centre.
Knife Angel
In 2014, sculptor Alfie Bradley and the British Ironworks Centre, launched a new incentive called the 'Save a Life, Surrender Your Knife' campaign. They encouraged a knife amnesty in conjunction with local police forces across the United Kingdom to enable them to build/sculpt an angel statue that will be 20 ft (6.1 m) high when completed. Many knives were sent in with at least one consignment containing explosives that were packaged incorrectly. This necessitated Ministry of Defence bomb disposal being called out and performing a controlled explosion.
Relatives of those killed by knife crime have been invited to engrave blades as part of the sculpture. As of October 2016, the work is nearing completion and is set to include 100,000 knives, blades, swords and other weapons used in violent crime from across 43 Police Force's in the United Kingdom. A campaign is underway to have the finished sculpture installed at Trafalgar Square in London. Clive Knowles, chairman of the British Ironworks Centre criticised 6 police forces across England and Wales from not getting involved with the project. So far, 37 forces have responded to the request and sent knives in to the centre from amnesties held across their force's boundaries. The Home office said that it supported the project, but partaking was down to each individual force to decide for themselves.
The centre and the sculptor (Alfie Bradley, who has been a victim of knife crime himself) have been criticized by some relatives of the victims of knife crime, but have also been praised by others.