Golden Lion Bridge Mural Refreshed by Swindon artist Tim Carroll. Made possible by Artsite and the Post Modern and Swindon Borough Council, the Golden Lion Bridge mural, first painted by Ken White in 1976, has had a refresh fit for the 21st century.
Exterior murals tend to be, by their very nature, transient things. They’re often commissioned to disguise something unattractive on a temporary basis. Think of the hoardings around the Mechanics’ Institute and the Kimmerfields area – and can we stop calling it that? What was wrong with Whalebridge? Or even Queenstown?
Anyway … transient or not, it remains sad that all, with this one exception, of Ken’s exterior Swindon murals disappeared. Of particular poignancy, one might argue, is that this one comprised Ken’s first mural for Swindon and the one that played a huge role in putting him in front of one Richard Branson.
Extract shown here from my book about Ken – see bottom of page.
Note that the refreshed mural now has an extra figure in it: Ken himself. And that’s not the first time Ken’s found himself placed in a mural. There’s a nod to him in the Cambria Bridge mural – because he himself once had a mural there.
It’s fair to say that Tim Carroll has done a fantastic job on it. Isn’t it lovely to see it looking so vibrant once again? And big thanks to Artsite and to SBC for doing what was necessary to make this happen.
The scene
What you’re looking at on this mural, is a street scene centred on the GLB. Until its demolition in 1918, the bridge stood in Regent Street and spanned the Wilts and Berks canal. On the photograph that Ken used when painting it, there are around thirty children, in their Sunday-best clothes posing on and around the bridge.
In Ken’s version he replaced some of the children with some of Swindon’s long-gone worthies – in particular Alfred Williams (see Secret Swindon) to commemorate the 1877 centenary of his birth.
A career launching mural
Back in 1977, chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer, used a picture of this mural in an advertising campaign for paint. That campaign got noticed by an employee of Richard Branson. Thus – at length – a long-standing business relationship and friendship developed.
There is of course much more to that story but … buy the bloody book!
See also – the book is chock full of great images of Ken’s work, in Swindon, other parts of the UK and abroad.
