The latest art and sculpture trails around the UK

The last few years city art trails (mainly run for charity), have become more popular. I’ve usually missed getting to see them due to lack of time off, or just missing the days. Once the Gromit Unleashed sculpture trail arrived in Oxford over the Easter holidays way back in 2018, we headed to Oxford on a slightly drizzly day to visit both Oxford Castle and do the trail. It was a lot of fun, and since then we’ve been to other temporary sculpture trails, and I’m always looking out for other trails to do.

If you’ve never experienced an art trail before, then do look out for them near to you. They’re great for families to get out and about, and to explore local areas. The charity art trails tend to rotate around different cities or regions, and some even return a few years later with different artists and designs (I’ve heard Gromit Unleashed is returning to Bristol for Summer 2025 so watch out for that one as it was one of the first trails that really got them all started).

What is an art trail or sculpture trail?

Art trails (or sculpture trails) are largely set up in cities or larger towns as a temporary exhibition, to provide a fun and interesting activity celebrating artworks. They’re usually themed around a character (think the Green Man trail, the Gromit Unleashed, the bee trail around Manchester. The sculptures are usually large, places in different places around the city, and designed by different artists or community groups from the city. Many trails are done for charity, with the sculptures auctioned off afterwards. Often you can get hold of a trail map from a local information centre or online, or pay to get a children’s activity sheet. Then you follow the trail in a day, or across weeks if you’re local, to spot as many of the sculptures as you can find.

Art trails are a great way to enjoy a day out to explore more around a town or city, especially when you’ve got children. Artwork is a good diversion when out shopping too.

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Art and sculpture trails in 2023 and in future

School holidays and weekends are a great time for getting out on temporary one off trails, watch out for any in your local area from around April onwards. Most are put on in aid of charities too.

• Scenes in the Square – Leicester Square, London. This movie themed statue trail is around Leicester Square, and has been extended to July 2023.
• Messenger – Wembley Park, London. 3rd July to 30th September. Free art trail of 21 works
• Unicornfest – Bristol and south west. 60 lifesize unicorns will be in the streets with an app to help find them over summer 2023.
• Elmer’s Art Parade – Petworth National Trust, 27th May to 3rd September. 10 sculpture of Elmer the elephant around the estate to find.
• Morph’s Epic Art Adventure – London, 19 June to 20 August 2023. This will bring together 70 lifesized Morph sculptures around the city in a wheelchair friendly step-free trail.
• Sculpture in the City – annual sculpture exhibitions that rotate from one year to the next in the City of London. Download the information, or get a leaflet from St Paul’s Cathedral. This year’s 12th edition starts from late June 2023 in the financial district.
• Herd in the City – Southend on Sea, 14th July to 4th Septmber. Over 45 elephants will be around the city.
• Leeds Bear Hunt – Leeds, from 1 July for 10 weeks. Over 50 bears in the city’s street celebrating Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
• The Big Hop Trail – North East Scotland, 2 July to 3 September 2023. There’ll be around 40 hares in Aberdeen, Moray, Orkney and Shetland.
• Castles in the Sky – Swansea 8 July to 16 September 2023. 40 giant castle sculptures will be around the city.
• Big Dog Art trail ‘Swindogs‘ – Swindon 15 July to 3 September 2023. Over 30 balloon dog sculptures will be around the town.
• Shaun the Sheep on the Tyne – Newcastle 19 July to 27 September with 50 supersized Shaun sculptures.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles street art trail – Manchester city centre, only until 15th August to celebrate the launch of the latest movie.
• Dinky Doors – Cambridge from July onwards. End date unknown. Rather than large art sculptures, Cambridge has 14 dinky doors set around the city to find. It is a paid app or map (with story and details of each place). You can pay what you want for a basic map, or just search as you go.
• Croydon Stands Tall – 28 August to 31 October 2023. A herd of over 30 giraffes will be in place to follow.
• Shaun by the sea trail – Brighton, 9 September to 5 November 2023 – 40 decorated Shaun the Sheep sculptures across Brighton and Hove.
• Scotties by the Sea – St Andrews, 1st September for 10 weeks. Over 30 giant Scottie dogs will be included on the trail.
• Tortoise Takeover – Jersey, 1st July to 31st August 2023 with 50 giant tortoise sculptures across the island..
• March of the Elephants – Lichfield, Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield, 1st July to 1 September 2024. 60 giant elephant sculptures around the 3 areas..
• Shaun the Sheep in the heart of Kent – Maidstone, 2024.

Check first if these trails are still running, because their websites don’t say if they’ve stopped.

• Perry’s Trail, Birmingham – during the Commonwealth Games end of July to mid August, you’ll be able to find the 17 Perry statues, and the virtual avatars while getting active.
• Fosse Park Foxes – look for the 25 foxes around the Fosse Park shopping centre at Leicester (still running as of Feb 2023).

Some sculptures are kept in museums etc as keepsakes (or having been bought or donated) afterwards. For example in Glasgow we spotted a couple of the cartoon thistles while walking past somewhere, and in the Riverside Museum. These were created as part of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014!

Permanent sculpture parks and walks

Around the UK in rural areas and country parks, there are permanent sculpture parks you can visit and walk around. They range from a handful of sculptures, to parks with hundreds of artwork pieces in, from natural designs to huge pieces. You can find some of them in the below, many are free to enter (you just pay for parking):

• Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield – over 40 years old, this parkland has 100 pieces of art to discover, as well as a handful of indoor galleries to enjoy. Great option for families.
• Sculpture by the Lakes, Dorchester Dorset – 30 giant sculptures by Simon Gudgeon and his wife, with further sculptures by 30 other artists. No children under 14 years, book online.
• Cotswold Sculpture Park, Somerfield Keys, Gloucestershire – Elemental exhibition, open April to September (not Tuesdays/Wednesdays), cafe available.
• Forest of Dean – beautiful walks (cycle trails also available), with well spaced out artworks set into the countryside features, including a beautiful hanging stained glass piece that was my favourite.
• Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, St Ives Cornwall – visit her former home and studio and see some of her 30+ exciting sculptures.
• The Sculpture Park, Farnham, Surrey – smaller pieces of artwork (over 800!), in a 10 acre garden to explore. The pieces are for sale, so the artwork changes regularly.
• British Ironworks Sculpture Centre, Shropshire – a 30 acre garden with over 100 metalwork pieces, including an educational Extinction Trail of endangered animals.
• Grizedale Sculpture, Cumbria – we visited towards the end of our uni days, enjoy Grizedale Forest’s 40+ sculptures that work well into the natural habitat. Visit them by foot or bike
• Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park, Norwich – if you’re going for the indoor art galleries, also check out the 20+ sculptures outside the centre on the University of East Anglia’s campus.
• Henry Moore Studio and Gardens, Perry Green, Hertfordshire – former workplace and home of the sculptor, each year displaying 20 of his pieces. Open end of March to October.
• Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, nr Edinburgh – a collection of contemporary sculptures, with permanent and temporary exhibitions.
• Kielder Art and Architecture Trail, Northumberland – interactive exhibits on a huge scale.
• Irwell Sculpture Trail, Greater Manchester – 70 sculptures along the 30 mile trail from Bacup to Salford Quays.
• Broomhill Sculpture Garden, Devon – boutique hotel and restaurant with a garden with 150 sculptures. You need to book in advance.
• Compton Verney’s Art in the Park – a lovely good value day out, some of the sculptures are permanent, others are temporary. Lots of family activities, as well as indoor art galleries.
• University of Warwick sculpture park, Coventry – open to the public, sculptures can be seen around the campus site. There’s usually a family fun trail leaflet you can download as well as the more traditional version.
• Fforest Fawr Sculpture Trail, Cardiff – woodland trail with artworks throughout.

Previous trails

It’s always worth keeping an eye out for trails that are returning in future. Some are annual events, so if the one in your area is fninished for the year, sign up for a newsletter or follow on social media to find out more about returning events in future.

Oxford Gromit Unleashed trail experience (2018)

N has seen Shaun the Sheep on children’s tv, but never seen Wallace and Gromit, but he doesn’t mind a trail.  Especially when there’s a prize involved at the end.  The Gromit Unleashed tour cost us £2 which goes towards the Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Appeal and supports sick children in hospitals.

Rather than being all around the city, the trail was based in the Westgate shopping centre. That meant it was perfect for a drizzly day.  No worries about getting drenched while looking for them, although it can get busy when you want to photograph them.

Most were Gromit, although there were a couple of Shaun statues too.  And we loved the cheese and teapot sculptures too.  The cheese was a perfect size for N to sit on and check out the trail map.

What I loved is how a trail round a shopping centre keeps N happy.  He doesn’t moan about being near shops, although I wasn’t on a shopping mission unfortunately.  If you’re out with the whole family, it’s the perfect opportunity to leave the OH and kids to do the trail while you shop.

We found it a good way to check out the whole of the shopping centre.  With only 10 statues to find, it didn’t take long (we did it in a couple of stages as our castle tour was in the middle.  It’s lovely to see children’s excitement at first finding the Gromit, and then seeing all the colour, pattern and theme of each one. And N got to choose a Gromit keyring at the end for completing the trail. He’s already decided it’s going on his bookbag.

Hopefully now we’ve had one trail in Oxford, we’ll get more in future. It would be nice to have them stay for longer, and be more wide spread around the city.

Other sculpture trails we’ve visited:

• Manchester – Bee in the City 100 bees around the city and outskirts
• University of Warwick – contemporary art in the campus grounds

If you know of any more, let me know and I’ll add them. Which trails have you done in the past?

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