Alan Titchmarsh unveils Ilkley Fountain inspired by sphagnum moss

National World - LocalTV

A significant piece of history in Ilkley has had a new lease of life as Gardener & Broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh and 'Improving Ilkley' have unveiled a new fountain at the top of Brook Street.

Transcript

00:00The project started just over two years ago. This area of the town has been a bit neglected for a

00:04number of years. It used to have a working fountain in it in the 60s, it was taken off,

00:08it was a flower bed and the group came together to run a public competition to really reinvent

00:16what the fountain would look like in the town. If we were going to sort of install something

00:20it had to be something special, it had to be something unique, it was not going to be something

00:26that was a pastiche sort of embodiment of the previous fountain. It's been a very much a

00:35collaborative effort to get to where we are today. Anthony Barnett who's been the architect,

00:43Ian Whitlam the engineer and of course Juliet and Jamie Gutch who won the competition. My husband

00:49and I are artists and we make forms and shapes which respond to patterns and shapes in nature.

00:57When I heard about the fountain competition, sphagnum moss came into my mind immediately.

01:01Sphagnum moss is actually quite a difficult plant to define. It holds this curious mixture of being

01:08alive and dead and there's a sense of such kind of magic underneath the ground. They feel saturated,

01:18they feel really kind of neither firm nor fully watery. The water that runs through the fountain

01:26comes from these bogs and these moorlands. To create a sculpture on this size,

01:33there's an element of confrontation about it. It's in the space and it's quite hard to miss it

01:38when you're going about your business. But I think really what we'd hoped was that the water takes

01:44centre stage and that the sculpture is really just the backdrop for that water. So I think that

01:48regardless of the actual design, people are loving listening to and watching the water flow through

01:55it. We also ran a public donation page and had over 150 families donate to have their name inscribed

02:03in the surround of the fountain. I think it's brought people together, it's brought a new generation to

02:07come and look at the fountain and to see it and it looks amazing in the light and it's completely

02:12rejuvenated the area. Well it's a sunny morning in Ilkley, this glorious fountain, gravity fed from the

02:19moor. I remember the original way back in the 50s and 60s, which wasn't nearly as nice as this. The fact

02:24that it's based on sphagnum moss and it's slightly abstract reminds us all how important that moorland is

02:29and how important sphagnum moss is for carbon capture and all those modern things, but also just as part of

02:35nature and Ilkley, so luckily, surrounded by nature. I love it. If something isn't controversial, it often

02:41isn't worthwhile. And the fact of what we've gone through to get this, anybody who looks at this now

02:48with the sun on it, I defy them to say it isn't anything other than amazingly beautiful. Give it a round.

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