Ironwork Centre's giant millipede is a real ‘feet’ of artistic brilliance
A call for unwanted golf clubs to create an enormous sculpture of a millipede proved to be a driving success.
The sculpture is being unveiled at the British Ironwork Centre, near Oswestry, as part of its bid to encourage schoolchildren and the wider public to appreciate the importance of the world of invertebrates and the environment.
It could also be the world’s longest millipede sculpture at more than 100 feet.
The most important feet, however, are the 1,000 pairs that have been created for the enormous millipede.
Clive Knowles from the centre said: "When we have an idea for a piece of art and ask members of the public for help we never know how they will react. But this project really did fly.
"We needed a minimum of 2,000 used golf clubs and that is what we were donated. We had all kinds of clubs - drivers, putters, woods - from everywhere, from members of the public, from golf clubs and from sports shops.
"We always wanted to make it the world's longest millipede. When we started building it it was like a snake, flat on the ground but we realised that wasn't going to look great. So we took one of our redundant vehicles and wove the millipede round it, with its head on top of the windscreen."
He said there was still enough of the millipede extending out onto the ground to make a long seat.
"We hope schoolchildren will sit on it during visits here and learn more about the environment and how important insects are to the bio-system that we are part of on this planet. Insects are incredibly important," he said.
The British Ironwork Centre is well know for using unwanted items to turn into pieces of art, from the Spoon Gorilla to the Knife Angel and many more.
Mr Knowles said it was a visit to Africa many years ago that inspired him to look to combine recycling with art.
"Local people were collecting flips flops from the beach and creating wonderful things with them," he said.
