Stony Mapstone

Successful installation of the Mapstone sculpture in Market Square, Stony Stratford.

The Mapstone is designed to celebrate the town and its identity. The sculpture depicts the past, the present and the future.

INSTALLATION

Carefully constructing the layers of the sculpture.

The top of the sculpture representing the future - changing colour, within the changing light.

THE MAKING PROCESS

The maquette of the ‘Stony Mapstone’ shaped by sculptors Stephen Broadbent and Peter Davidson at the studio. Our Stonemason Ade Wright meticulously scaled up the design in stone.

The detailed design for the piece - complexity in form and construction, while remaining clean and elegant. Long-standing natural materials - the blocks for the sculpture with carved oolitic limestone called Ancaster Weatherbed, Green Cumberland slate, Portland stone, and the base section is carved granite block. Alongside layers of solid cast crystal clear coloured resin - transforming and telling new stories.

STONY STRATFORD PUBLIC ART

This project had a long community engagement process - where we met the community in the Stony Stratford Library - these Public Art Meetings could be joined in person or online. With thoughts and ideas shared in October 2024, the sculpture will be unveiled on 17th October 2026.

HOW WE BEGIN:

  1. LOOK AROUND - find the threads already there

  2. SEE POTENTIAL - get excited about stories to be told

  3. REFLECT ON MEANINGS - draw out what is relevant

  4. DEVELOP THEMES - out of which designs emerge

  5. CO-OPERATE - with planners, architects, engineers & local people

Highlighting stone sculptural markers installed Manor Royal

Manor Royal Heritage Trail - Carved limestone sculpture

Yesterday

YESTERDAY

The idea behind this artwork was to create a sense of looking into the past.

It takes its starting point from the image of tree rings. Everybody knows a tree ring represents one year, but this must mean each ring could in theory be pulled out like a napkin ring - the year 1936, for example, could become an object in itself. "What would happen," we asked ourselves, "if we cut a section of an oak trunk, set it on its side and were able to push the rings back with our hand?"

What happens is that a shape is produced that looks from the outside a bit like an old bellows camera. From the inside, a tunnel is created that becomes deeper towards the centre - deeper the further back in time one goes, as though one is literally looking 'into the past.' If we remove the central few rings we get an aperture. Now the eye is drawn down into the tree rings and through into what lies beyond.

This stone-carved sculpture sits just to the south of Metcalf Way. Orientated with the narrow aperture pointing down the bridle way towards Langley Green, where the view through would be one that has changed little since well before the coming of Manor Royal and the development of County Oak. Carved into the sculpture is the word 'Yesterday.' 

TOMORROW

The concept combines the idea of a spiral, suggestive of dynamic growth, with the idea of future potential contained within the seed. The acorn is thought to speculate about a future time rather than actually showing it, thereby inviting similar questions for all of us.

The frame imagery relates to an architect's drawing board on which ideas and possibilities are being sketched. The blasted code revealed on the acorn’s surface, holds a mystery with in it that will shape the seed’s future. Carved along the edge of the sculpture in futuristic font, is the word ‘Tomorrow’.

Both the Yesterday and Tomorrow pieces express the act of trying to look backwards and forwards from the standpoint of today, not actual time travel.

MAKING PROCESS

Our friend and creative partner, Adrian Wright, the renowned Stone Mason, enjoyed the challenge of the complex form and layers of imagery.