Celebrating Houghton Regis’s straw plaiting heritage with stone
I’ve recently completed a series of 4 sculptures celebrating the straw plaiting heritage of Bedfordshire town, Houghton Regis.
Straw plaiting in Houghton Regis was a huge industry. Straw was grown and gathered by the local community before being plaited and either taken to larger market towns such as Luton to sell for hat making. Some hat making was also undertaken in Houghton Regis.
There are dozens of types of plait. The plait that I have used for the artwork in known as the Dunstable 7 straw plait. Dunstable is the neighbouring town to Houghton Regis so this would almost certainly have been commonly used.
The carved stone sculptures are made from Cadeby limestone, a white limestone mimicking the local chalk land geology of Bedfordshire. The 4 sculptures, weigh around 2 tonnes each. They were carved in my Leicestershire workshop before being installed in Bedfordshire.
The 1st sculpture shows the straws gathered into a neat bundle, accurately clipped so that they are all identical lengths. It also shows some straw ears to represent its original state.
The 2nd sculpture shows a partly constructed plait. Half of the sculpture is neatly plaited while the other has the 7 straws, of the Dunstable plait, splayed wide ready to work. It also has a number of loose straws that are ready to use or have already been clipped carved underneath it.
The 3rd artwork shows the completed Dunstable 7 straw plait, rolled around neatly.
The final sculpture depicts several stacks of boater straw hats. The inspiration for this was a photograph of a local hat shop with boater hats stacked in this way.
The 4 artworks are sited on a new housing devel0pment in Houghton Regis and were commissioned by Stonewater. They are positioned within close proximity to one another so that that the narrative can be followed.
