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First statue of a non-royal woman planned for town

Trevor Bevins
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Denise Dutton/Dorchester Civic Society Image of the statue and bench superimposed onto an image of the pedestrianised shopping street. There are people walking along the street and in the background is the shop window of Goulds department store.Denise Dutton/Dorchester Civic Society
A mock-up submitted with the planning application shows how the statue would look

A life-sized statue of writer Sylvia Townsend Warner sitting on a bench is being proposed for Dorchester's main shopping street.

Planning permission is being sought for the installation outside Gould's department store in South Street.

The writer and poet lived in Dorset with her partner, poet Valentine Ackland, at a time when same-sex relationships defied societal expectations.

If approved, the bronze sculpture will be the first of a non-royal woman in the county town.

The application by Dorchester Civic Society includes an information board.

A cat at the statue's feet will be modelled on Dorchester's famous Susie the cat.

Susie achieved local celebrity status after appearing in more than 30 different shops across the town.

The writer was chosen by a public poll on notable women from the area who have been overlooked by history.

Denise Dutton/Dorchester Civic Society A clay maquette of the statue depicting a woman sitting at one end of a bench with a cat rubbing its head on her feet. The woman is wearing a long skirt and a buttoned blouse. She is also wearing glasses and has curly hair parted in the centre.Denise Dutton/Dorchester Civic Society
A clay maquette of the statue shows the writer sitting on the bench with Susie at her feet

In its planning application to Dorset Council, the society said: "Sylvia Townsend Warner was a prolific writer and poet whose career spanned six decades, producing some of the most varied, witty and revolutionary work of her time.

"Yet, despite her remarkable contributions, her name is rarely mentioned and remains absent from Dorset's literary landscape.

"Sylvia was a highly individual writer of novels, short stories and poems, and a contemporary of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes."

The society say her statue will be the town's first non-royal statue of a woman, joining its existing six statues of men.

It will be sculpted by Denise Dutton, who created the Mary Anning statue in Lyme Regis.

Public comments on the proposal remain open until 4 April.

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