Improving Ilkley
Ilkley Fountain 2024
NO FURTHER DONATIONS PLEASE AS OF 15/10/24 21.10
EMAIL trustee@improvingilkley.org IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE CONTACTED ONCE WE HAVE RECONCILED OUTSTANDING DONATIONS AND QUERIES
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The Ilkley Fountain Project aims to raise funds by 31st May 2024 to revive and restore an important landmark of our Yorkshire spa town by installing a contemporary, locally designed fountain in a central location at the top of Brook Street, where a Victorian fountain once stood.
Donate here, bid at the art auction at the Tinker Gallery, or buy a limited edition of the scale model! More info below...
Like the original Victorian fountain, our fountain is conceived, created, and funded by local people and local organisations as a gesture of hope for the future. The project includes the restoration of the dilapidated gravity-fed fountain mechanism from 1865 so, like the original, the new design will run with fresh moorland water.
Improving Ilkley invites you to help turn this vision into reality with a sculptural centrepiece at the heart of the town, celebrating moorland water and Sphagnum Moss, a keystone species vital to the past, present, and future of our unique local ecosystem.
Donors of any amount, large or small, will be included on a public list which will form an historic record of the project. ‘Keystone’ donors of £250.00 and above are invited to have their names displayed permanently at the fountain site.
This is our moment to show unity and purpose by delivering a fountain symbolising how a community can come together to preserve for future generations the things we all know to be precious, from clean water in the river, to moorland habitats and treasured local institutions.
Nigel Walsh, Curator, Leeds Art Gallery: "This new fountainhead, which offers a contemplative evocation of the nature of moor-found sphagnum moss and its water-bearing properties, carries profound local significance that will engage and delight local audiences as well as the town’s growing number of visitors."
Ronnie Duncan, renowned local art collector: "The fountain design is an important expression of the contribution which the habitat, town and landscape of Ilkley makes to the environment. It was a home-grown design, but had the competition been national, I believe it would have won for its beauty, simplicity and relevance."
Links:
Additional images of scale model
Limited edition of scale model information
Further design information of fountain sculpure and gravity-fed plan