Dancing Girl

This month marks the sad anniversary of the disappearance of the Dancing Girl.
Back in October 2006, in the middle of a quiet Sunday night whilst even the foxes, rabbits and deer were asleep, the beautiful statue of a scantily clad young girl draped in a cloth, holding a tambourine, was gently lifted out of her Grecian Temple home at the top of Dunorlan Park.
The statue, described as "precious and historically significant", was carved in the 1880s by renowned Victorian sculptor William Theed and was gifted to the town by Alderman RD Burslem in 1951.  William Theed was highly regarded and created statues for the Royal Family and has sculptures in St. Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and on the Albert Memorial in London.
The Dancing Girl's former home is still there to behold though. The magnificently decorated grecian temple is built from Portland stone and a material called Pulhamite which is a mysterious patented anthropic rock invented by James Pulham (1820-98). Pulhamite was used to join natural rocks together or crafted to simulate natural stone features and is very convincing. Amazingly, nothing can ever be built of Pulhamite again as the recipe went to the grave with him a hundred years ago.  Keep your eyes peeled for more instances of Pulhamite around the park.



Its stunning interior paintwork and decoration had been covered up at some point in its history and during the parks restoration it was discovered again when experts carefully stripped back sections of modern paint revealing an intricate painting scheme which was loosely based on the decoration of the ancient Greeks.  Go on get your nose up to the glass and have a look, it really is very beautiful.
Sadly the Dancing Girl is still missing today and her elegant home is empty without her.
Perhaps we should carve someone elses figure into stone as a replacement?

Comments

[Anke]

An excellent suggestion, Carl. Anyone care to suggest anyone else?

[Carl Lewis]

What about having a competition with local people deciding what kind of sculpture to have in that magnificent building? A monument to people that have made a contribution to the town like Beau Nash or Canon Hoare? How about a sculpture of a family enjoying the park? Im sure others will have better ideas. I just hope the Council doesn't decide that this building is unsafe!

[Anke]

Thanks, Jenina and Tim, thanks for leaving me a comment.
This sort of crime was common a couple of years ago, occurring over a short period of tim, with stone balls, bricks and other items going missing around RTW.
Remember the sundial?
I think the perpetrators have moved on to other towns though as they were definitely well-planned and coordinated attacks.
Thanks for mentioning the picture of her, Tim. Perhaps we will rescue her again?

[Tim Pendry]

Don't forget the two metal garden chairs that disappeared from our garden in Dudley Road. Two identical but newly painted ones appeared on the stage at the Trinity two evenings later ... and we couldn't be bothered to question the actors about the coincidence :-)

I remember the dancing girl: why don't you put a picture up and see if anyone has seen it around the country ... There is one at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Dancing_Girl_(Dunorlan).jpg and the story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunorlan_Park and at http://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/section.asp?catid=1080&docid=2945

It was sexier in real life than in the picture :-)

[Jenina]

I didn't know about this until now. But this is the kind of crime that seems to be common in RTW. We had a stone bird bath taken from our front garden a few years ago. But what to do? The times they are a changin' ....

Jenina