Otter Project – March 2025

 

We’ve had our lovely workshop/shop at the beautiful Parc Glynllifon, near Caernarfon since September 2024, during which time we can’t count the number of times we’ve walked around it, with our two dogs, taking in the history of the  gardens, the buildings and of course the wooden carvings, however on March 8 2025, while taking the dogs on their last walk before home time, we discovered the wooden sculpture of a mother otter and her baby, it was mostly hidden by grass and bamboo but it was absolutely stunning and so lifelike, unfortunately a fallen tree had removed the mother otters head and the carvings were covered in moss etc. I must admit it felt really sad that this beautiful sculpture was falling into disrepair and no longer visible for the public to enjoy.

 

We love the Parc so much and thought that maybe we could try to clean it up and try and do something about the mother’s head. The following Monday Simon went to have a chat with Nathan, the warden, to ask if this would be possible, thankfully Nathan agreed but not only that, he actually had the mother otters head, fully intact!!!!

 

 

This project is going to be an absolute labour of love, it may take some time as work commitments and of course the weather are all going to impact on our progress but we are determined to take our time and do the best possible job we can to ensure that this stunning sculpture will be rejuvenated and available for the visitors to the Parc to see and enjoy.

 

History of the Sculpture

 

With the help of one of our Courtyard neighbour’s  Ann Catrin Evans (https://www.anncatrinevans.co.uk/ -  (check out her website her designs are amazing), We  discovered that the original sculpture was created by Peter Boyd, a local Sculptor, around the year 2011 (ish).

 

At some point in time a tree has fallen across the mother and baby, and took off a part of the mother’s head, as neither of us are sculptors we thought this may pose a problem when trying to piece everything together, however as I said earlier the head had been salvaged and was in a safe place just waiting for somebody to piece it back together.

 

We have decided to re attach the mother otters head before starting our cleaning operation, the head is now sitting on our balcony at home and we’re waiting for a nice sunny day to reattach, then the cleaning operation will begin.