Lancaster based sculptor, Alan Ward has started work on the first of the replacement stone fruit sculptures – the Swan’s Egg pear. The sculpture is being carved from Portland stone. Alan is working from a polystyrene model created by artist Robert Williams.

Chris Wright has taken some photographs of Alan at work. See below.

The Friends of the Storey Gardens have commissioned the first two new fruit sculptures.

The first sculpture will be the Czar plum funded by the Friends of Storey Gardens themselves.  The second will be the Swan’s Egg pear funded by Lancaster City Council. 

The fruits will be carved in Portland stone by local sculptor Alan Ward.  The sculptures will be installed on new plinths.

The existing plinth for the Czar plum sculpture has already been removed.  See a separate blog post for a few photographs of this happening.

Click on the image below for a plan of The Tasting Garden to see where the Czar plum and Swan’s Egg pear trees are located in the garden.

The first replacement fruit sculpture to be installed in The Tasting Garden will be the fruit of the Czar plum tree. In preparation for this the old plinth had to be removed. This was done on Wednesday 18th May 2022 by Lucas Introna and Dave Brookes.

Below are some photos taken at various stages of the process.

Although the final touches have still to be completed, the bulk of the work was undertaken by a member of the Friends in 2021.

The work included replacing the rotten wooden frames to the glazing and repainting all the external woodwork.

Below are a couple of images showing the rotten frames followed by an image after the restoration.