Local Life - St Helens - September 2019
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34<br />
Photo by Matt Harrop<br />
The Needle<br />
The Millennium Needle<br />
at the back of the<br />
Hardshaw Centre is a<br />
functional installation<br />
unveiled in 2006 – a<br />
spiral metal staircase<br />
winds around the 20<br />
metre sculpture, leading<br />
up to the car park. Small<br />
holes in the top of the<br />
Needle allow light to<br />
shine through, with<br />
floor lights originally<br />
illuminating the giant<br />
stainless steel piece. But<br />
what does it mean?<br />
Well, the Needle was<br />
created to reflect <strong>St</strong>.<br />
<strong>Helens</strong>’ ambitions and confidence at the turn of the<br />
new millennium; reaching, as it does, for the stars.<br />
Glacial Erratic<br />
You might have spotted the three large boulders<br />
lurking around <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Helens</strong> – one located in Friends’<br />
Garden, one in Dale Crescent in Sutton Leach going<br />
toward Mill Lane, and the other in Sutton Park – but<br />
have you ever stopped<br />
to wonder where they<br />
originated from? The<br />
glacial boulders are<br />
theorised to have been<br />
left behind by the last Ice<br />
Age in the Lake District.<br />
The boulder at the<br />
Marina Avenue entrance<br />
to Sutton Park is thought<br />
to be over 12,000 years<br />
old, and was brought<br />
down from up north by<br />
ice glaciers.<br />
Photo by Sue Adair<br />
The Workers<br />
Unveiled in April this year at Vera Page Park - close<br />
to the <strong>St</strong>eve Prescott Bridge – this bronze statue<br />
commemorates all those who lost their lives in<br />
their workplaces. The statue was dreamed up by<br />
the <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Helens</strong> Workers Memorial charity and stands<br />
proudly on the former Lyons Yard which was home<br />
to a combination of major industries in <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Helens</strong>. It<br />
depicts an industrial worker lifting a child, and was<br />
constructed from old tools and machinery parts – a<br />
tribute to what the children of so many industrial<br />
workers lost.<br />
The Miner<br />
This statue, which sits on a roundabout along <strong>St</strong>.<br />
<strong>Helens</strong> Linkway close to Ravenhead Retail Park,<br />
was awarded Grade-II listed status back in 2016.<br />
Designed by Arthur Fleischmann, the artwork dates<br />
back to 1964 and depicts a miner atop a cutting<br />
drum to mark the invention of the Anderton<br />
Shearer cutter, which was first used at Ravenhead<br />
Colliery. The statue actually used to stand across<br />
from Anderton House in Lowton before it was<br />
relocated to <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Helens</strong>.
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