Royal Watch News

Queen Elizabeth to unveil life-size bull statue

Jul 9, 2012, 12:01 GMT

Queen Elizabeth

Britain's Queen Elizabeth will unveil a life-size bronze bull on Wednesday (11.07.12).

Artist Brian Alabaster, 56, was thrilled to receive the 'tremendous honour' of creating a permanent piece of artwork to celebrate the Royal Jubilee visit to Hereford, after an anonymous benefactor put forward the money.

He said: 'It is an absolutely tremendous honour. I've done a few pieces for the public, but many of my pieces are in private collections, so it will be nice to have this visible piece.

'They wanted to make a permanent symbol for the Queen's jubilee visit and decided on a Hereford bull. Half a dozen artists were invited to make a presentation and I was fortunate enough to get the commission.'

The artist said he was given the 'perfect bull', called Border Rory, to sculpt and his history as a herdsman came in useful to round up the animal each day for the modelling stage, which took almost a month.

He said: 'I had to work to find the bull, catch it, persuade it to be nice and then walk it to where I was working and tie it.'

The bull - which is more than nine feet long and six feet tall, and weighs more than a tonne - was installed on a platform in the city on Friday (06.07.12) and will be officially unveiled by the monarch later this week.

The queen will be given a miniature replica of the statue to commemorate her visit.