Description
Inspired by the love, enjoyment and craziness of the festive season. Christmas is also a time to be thankful for what we have in our lives, whether it be our family or our friends.
Christmas is about coming together to catch up, enjoy quality time with each other and most importantly have some fun…which is exactly what the trail of penguins will bring to the city!
So why not bring the magic of Christmas to the streets of Worcester in the summer of 2024?
Audio read by: Phillip Stoneman from BBC Hereford and Worcester
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Artist
Katie Hodgetts
Katie Hodgetts is a local maker, specialising in hand-painted, glazed ceramics and home décor. Katie set up her own ceramics business back in 2020, called Paint & Glaze. It has since grown over the years, now selling a diverse range of ceramic homeware products and taking commissions for personalised keepsakes.
Having always been fascinated with pattern, stemming from her degree in Textile Design, Katie loves that she can apply pattern to household items to be enjoyed by people in their everyday lives!
Drawing inspiration and shape from her travels and love for being outdoors, her work explores a playful interpretation of everyday life. As a designer Katie has an eye for developing and applying surface pattern across varied scale. This is evident in her own practice but also across large scale sculptures after her involvement with Wild in Art & other large-scale commissions.
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Location
06. High Street (Guildhall)
Worcester’s Guildhall has provided a scenic backdrop to the busy High street for 3 centuries. In fact, this year marks 300 years since construction was begun.
In 1227 Henry III renewed the city’s charter, granted originally by Richard I but not renewed under King John. The renewal meant that Worcester’s citizens answered directly to the crown and had greater liberties and self-governance. A guild of merchants was formed. The guild consisted of leading citizens of the day and controlled trade, taxes and public expenditure.
Needing somewhere to meet, the first Guild Hall in the city was erected on the same site as the current building. The medieval Guildhall was timber-framed and contained prison cells (one notorious cell was referred to locally as ‘the peep-hole), courts of justice and was fronted with shops. Over time the Merchant’s Guilds evolved to become ‘Corporations’. These were the forerunners of modern councils.
More about this location
06. High Street (Guildhall)
Worcester was granted ‘County’ status by James I in 1621, which allowed for the appointment of the city’s first mayor (another anniversary for this year).. The Guild Hall has remained an important seat of power for this municipal posting ever since. Today, a full roster of mayoral appointments can be seen within the building and several full-length portraits of Worcester mayors hang from the walls.
The building was heavily damaged during the English civil Wars, especially at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, where an isolated pocket of determined royalist resistance made a desperate last stand there.
In the first part of the 18th century Worcester’s economic fortunes began to revive and in 1721 work began on the current building, with later additions being completed in the 1790s. The architect credited with the design of the Guildhall is Thomas White, who had been a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren.
The iron railings and gates fronting the building were added around 1750. Popular local legend claims that a carved figure at the apex of the arch above the main doors with his ears pinned to the frame is Oliver Cromwell, but there’s no evidence that this was ever the intention of the artist who carved the figure.
In 1878, renowned architect George Gilbert Scott, responsible too for much of the restoration work of Worcester Cathedral, oversaw the restoration of the Guildhall, including the lavish interiors of the upper assembly rooms.
The present building contains prison cells in the basement dating from when the building was used as a courthouse in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prisoners awaiting trial or sentence were kept there and on special occasions are open to the public.
The building houses an ornate memorial to Worcester’s fallen of WWI. 4,981 names of men who served in the war are listed with 741 of them bearing small crosses, denoting that they lost their life during the conflict.
Today the building acts as an ornate meeting space for the modern-day council and is often used in ceremonial duties.
This location fact has been provided by Joe Tierney of Faithful History. To learn more stories of the ancient city of Worcester, spanning thousands of years of history in ‘The Faithful City’, visit https://www.facebook.com/faithfulhistoryworcester
Take home your own feathered friend
In October 2024 all 40 large penguins and one chick will be auctioned to raise funds for the care provided by St Richard’s Hospice.
In 2021, 31 stunning elephant sculptures raised a mammoth £368,800 to support the care provided by St Richard’s Hospice across Worcestershire.
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