Public art of the bovine variety: the GWH cow
Cow sculpture at Great Western Hospital
Whenever I see this cow sculpture it makes me smile and think of one of my favourite Ogden Nash poems:
‘Two cows, mildly mooing:
No bull; nothing doing’
Which, if you think about it, is a masterclass in understatement.
As is:
‘The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other milk’
Anyway, I just like that it’s there. Though why a cow exactly? Any particular reason for that, do we know?
19/07/2013: UPDATE: well, while we might not know why exactly it’s a cow rather than any other animal we do now know, thanks to a comment on the blog, this: It used to be at PMH, in an internal courtyard/garden as I remember, and was moved from there when GWH opened. Don’t remember exactly how long it had been there, only that it appeared some time between 1983 and 1990 (dates I worked at PMH).
And the commentor has kindly provided a link to the Swindon flicker collection showing the cow in its original home: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/6835426477/
and also: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/6835426487/in/photostream/
Thank you so much for that. Brilliant!
#swindon #wiltshire #swindonblog #swindon blog #thingstodoinswindon #thingstoseeinswindon #whattodoinswindon #swindonia #swindoniablog #hiddenswindon #swindonian #swiondonia #publicart #sculpture
6 responses to “Public art of the bovine variety: the GWH cow”
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- - May 25, 2015
- - September 15, 2013
Born Again Swindonian 
Just found this in the Central Library’s Flickr collection. Hope it will link.
Thanks! That’s great. I’ve linked to it on https://www.facebook.com/BornAgainSwindonian – I’ll add it to the blog post another time. Thank you so much. 🙂 This is exactly what I wanted. Cheers!
It used to be at PMH, in an internal courtyard/garden as I remember, and was moved from there when GWH opened. Don’t remember exactly how long it had been there, only that it appeared some time between 1983 and 1990 (dates I worked at PMH).
Hello Margie
Thanks for your comment – that’s really good to hear. I like that. It didn’t get discard but was re-sited. Brilliant! 🙂