Shrewsbury, Shropshire

We want a rockery

In the Abbey Gardens by the river in Shrewsbury is an interesting rockery, made up largely of tantalizing fragments of old buildings. This very special rubble got here because the land was once a stone yard of belonging to a local family of builders, sculptors, and architects, the Carlines. The place is easy to miss as you hot-foot it across the river on the way to the abbey, but it’s well worth a pause. The collection includes various statues, a carved stone head, part of an Ionic capital, a clock face, a coat of arms, and other fragments of moulding and carved stone. Presumably they came from altered or demolished buildings, and most of them must have found their way here in the 19th century.

For the most part, it’s not known which buildings these carvings came from. The main exceptions are the fragment of Ionic capital and the figure of Justice, shown with her scales and accompanied by ears of wheat, a cornucopia, and the Shropshire coat of arms. These came from the town’s old Shirehall, a building designed by a local man, Hiram Haycock, and demolished in 1834.

Justice has seen better days. Her surface is flaking and only part of her iron scales survives – they’re vulnerable in this position. And yet I like the way these stones have been unselfconsciously preserved by being incorporated into a rockery, finding a use that would have surprised their creators but must have given pleasure to locals and visitors alike. I’ve never fancied a rockery of my own, but if it could be like this I might change my mind.