Art Walk

Add the need to collect a parcel from the local sorting office to an art trail in the City and this combination gave us the opportunity to go on a circular walk.

All this took place one day last week during half term.

The last time we had a parcel to collect we made that a more interesting trip too and this time we even managed to figure in a pub stop for lunch.

We began on the boardwalk. Even though this has been in existence for a few years now this was actually the first time we'd used it.

I had forgotten my camera and I'm not used to the one on my phone so my photos aren't great.

This shows you how the boardwalk fits into the landscape. The train track on one side and the river on the other.

At the start of the boardwalk there is an information board and 3 metal statues. One is of Peter Waterfield the Olympic diver who lives and trained in Southampton. The second is of the mighty Matt Le Tiss. Both well deserved, huge achievements made in their respective careers and they have strong ties with the City.
The third statue is of Jane Austen. This world famous author did live in Southampton, but only for a couple of years and I feel this is a bit of a tenuous link.
Emily Davies would have been a much more worthier choice or maybe Chris or Jenny Packham? Just my opinion.

I can't share the statues with you as first off there was a chap sitting in front of them who showed no signs of moving and secondly someone had used a disposable BBQ in that spot and decided not to dispose of it.
Makes me furious when people are so inconsiderate with their rubbish.
Shall we have a photo of G and S instead? 
Yes, let's see their happy smiley faces.

As the tide was low S decided a bit of clambering was in order and there was also a bit of posing for the camera.

Once off the boardwalk and onto the road you come to an old pub which has been boarded up for a while. As we walked past I snapped the bulls eye glass window whilst desperately trying to remember what the pub was called.

The next thing to catch my eye was the art work on the shutters of a row of shops. Most of the shops have closed and to brighten the ugly grey shutters local people and artists worked together in the transformation, more can be seen here but these two were my favourites.

Next up is a bit of a mystery. There are two sets of these along the road we were walking along. Apparently they are cleats, used for securing ships at a dock, that much I can find out but why are they situated on a busy main road into town I have no idea. I have googled and can't find an answer, maybe I need to email someone at the council.

At the start of this post I mentioned that this walk was being done so we could follow an art trail. I hate to be negative about such initiatives but I felt this one fell short of the mark. This is the only piece of art we saw that I took a photo of.
The bright colours must look fabulous on a sunny day and we all laughed at the name of the road, but to be honest on the whole we saw more interesting things on our walk which weren't part of the art trail.

In the City centre we have several works of art dedicated to different parts of our history and this one opposite the mural looks to me to be by the same artist but I couldn't find any plaque nearby to give me some info about it and I can't find anything online either.

From here it was a walk over Northam bridge to the sorting office and now with the parcel collected we made our way past Bitterne Manor park where we saw these gates which I'm fairly sure are a new addition, but I could be wrong. The metal rectangles are reminiscent of roman shields which I suppose is a nod to the fact that this area was once a Roman settlement known as Clausentum.

Just past here we made our lunch stop and then carrying on once again our route took us past Riverside park where we went to look at an art installation in the trees. This wasn't part of the trail but couldn't be ignored.

The geese have been in situ for a while now and have recently undergone some renovation work as some were damaged in stormy weather.

From here it was just a hop, skip and a jump to where we had started off.

Not the walk we thought it was going to be but still plenty to see and good to be out and about.