Patrick Comerford
The sculptor and artist Peter Walker’s work can be seen in towns, cities and cathedrals throughout England and around the world. His art includes large-scale sculptures, commissioned and bespoke sculptural works, as well as paintings, drawings, film, and sound and light installations.
He has had a major impact in recent decades on Lichfield and Lichfield Cathedral, and is singularly responsible for transforming Lichfield into the City of Sculpture. I often take the opportunity to appreciate another aspect of his sculpture and work in Lichfield, where he has undertaken, developed and commissioned artistic projects since 2006.
When I was in Stafford earlier this week, I saw his one of Peter Walker’s earlier works. His statue of Izaak Walton (1593-1683) stands on the banks of the River Sow in Victoria Park, close to Stafford Station, and was made as part of a millennium project in 2000.
Izaak Walton, best-known for The Compleat Angler (1653), was born in Stafford in 1593 and baptised in Saint Mary’s Church, Stafford, on 21 September 1593. He left Stafford in his teens to serve an apprenticeship in London, and by 1624 he was running a linen and drapery shop in the city. He lived in Chancery Lane, which gave him access to the River Thames and River Lea to go fishing.
Walton was related by marriage to both Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the nonjuror Bishop Thomas Ken. He got to know the poet-priest John Donne while the future Dean of Saint Paul’s was the vicar of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West Church, Fleet Street, and Walton was a churchwarden and vestry member there in 1632-1644.
As a strong supporter of both the Anglican church and the Royalist cause during the Civil War, Walton was forced to sell his business following the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor in 1644 and move from the Parliamentarian-controlled City of London to Clerkenwell.
Walton also returned to his home county of Staffordshire, and bought Halfhead Farm in Shallowford, five miles outside Stafford, in 1655. He regularly visited his friends in Staffordshire, including Charles Cotton of Beresford Dale on the banks of the River Dove, and I first got know of him and his works in my late teens when I visited Dovedale and stayed at Ilam Hall.
The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 brought new roles for Walton. Bishop George Morley appointed him as his steward first in Worcester and later in Winchester. He died in Winchester on 15 December 1683 at the age of 90.
Walton wrote a biography of the priest-poet John Donne in 1640, and later published biographies of Richard Hooker (1665) and George Herbert (1670). These books earned him a place in Anglican theology and church history, although he is best known for The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653. It was not just a guide to fishing but also offered a window into life in 17th century England, particularly during the English Civil War. It secured Walton’s place in literary history, and became one of the most reprinted books in the world. His friend Cotton wrote a supplement on fly fishing for the final edition of The Compleat Angler.
In The Compleat Angler, Walton points out that fishing can teach us patience and discipline. Fishing takes practice, preparation, discipline; like discipleship, it has to be learned, and learning requires practice before there are any results. And sometimes, the best results can come from going against the current.
Peter Walker was a student at Stafford College and his sculpture of Izaak Walton in Victoria Park was cast in 2000 by Morris Singer Art Foundry, founded in 1927. The statue was presented to the town by the Staffordshire Newsletter to mark the Secon Millennium, and was funded by staff and readers of the Staffordshire Newsletter, with support from Staffordshire County Council’s Public Art Fund. It was unveiled by the newspaper proprietor Lord Illife on 5 September 2000.
Victoria Park in the centre of Stafford is close to Saint Mary’s Church, the High House on Greengate and the train station, with the River Sow, a tributary of the Trent, running through the park.
Izaak Walton Walk was developed in the 1880s as part of Stafford Corporation’s river improvement scheme. Seats and railings were put in place, and trees were added around 1900 to improve the appearance of what was a marshy area prone to flooding.
The corporation bought the land In 1903 and raised its level by 3 ft. The area was laid out as Victoria Park, the bandstand was moved to the park from Market Square. The park was created by T Fobbs & Co of Wolverhampton and opened on 15 June 1908.
Peter Walker’s bronze sculpture of Izaak Walton was unveiled on 5 September 2000. A quarter of a century later it is one of only a handful of survivors from Statues in the Park, planned then as a millennial sculpture walk. The life-size figure originally originally held a sculpted fishing rod but this has since been removed. The missing rod is replaced on occasion by a real fly rod – appropriate, I suppose for a writer best remembered for The Compleat Angler.
The half-timbered cottage where Walton lived in Shallowford is now maintained by Stafford Borough Council as a museum. There is a wall tablet to Walton in Saint Mary’s Church, Stafford, where he was baptised, with a marble bust in the north aisle. The bust was created by RC Bett in 1878 after a public fundraising drive.
I was back in Stafford this week hoping to see inside Saint Mary’s, thinking there was a mid-day celebration of the Eucharist there on Tuesdays. However, I had not counted on the town centre parish church being closed after all the busy-ness of Holy Week and Easter.
I never got to see the monument to Izaak Walton in the church. But more about Saint Mary’s Church tomorrow, hopefully, and more in the days to come about some of the other places I visited in Stafford, Wolseley and Rugeley this week.
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