Keir Smith – Millwood Trail (Formerly Bowkerstead) – 2009
Material: Wood, Metal
Trail: High Bowkerstead Trail
Theme: Transport
Form: Realism
Maps Featured on: 2013 – 2020
Status: In situ, March ’24
Situated a little off the path, on the High Bowkerstead trail half way up a steep slope from the campsite. This work was created in 1986, it was sited in the forest in 2009, part of a bequest of work made to the Forestry Commission by Keir’s wife after his death in 2007. On thinking about the forest Keir wrote “So you see in this place no man really dies. Death is merely a translation into a different kind of growth.”
The artwork forms part of a railway track. The four wooden sleepers are carved with different images, as Keir explains “A small boat drifts empty and powerless on a rough sea, a wave breaks out over the neck of a shattered oar, a sodden book, the pathetic survivor of some disaster floats on the swell. To close the sequence, a stone built bridge offers safe passage in a precarious world.”
As of late 2022, this sculpture has been relocated to the Millwood Trail where it has since been joined by its sister sculpture ‘Running from Eden’ which is sited nearby. This will allow a lot more people to see the sculpture.
Photos taken March 2024
Photographs taken September 2017
The waymarker for the piece, a bat with Orion’s belt. It used to mark Water Wheel, & River Under Tension before being placed on the Ridding Wood Trail around 2003, it then was moved here.
The Sculpture has now been moved to the Millwood Trail and is sited not far from it’s sister work Running From Eden.
Artist’s other work in Grizedale –
Enclosure. Realm of Taurus & Stag Pit – 1979
Seven Stones Before The Old Man – 1980
Exhibition – 2011
A Flower in Flower – 2014
Running from Eden – 2022
Page last updated March 2024
Grizedale Forest Sculpture An Unofficial Archive 