Gardening club restores cricket sculpture

A community gardening club has breathed new life into a cricket sculpture.

Durham Cricket Foundation’s Gardening Club has restored the sculpture at the Banks Homes Riverside Ground, originally created in 2019 to mark the Men’s Cricket World Cup. 

Over time, it had fallen into disrepair, with planted displays becoming neglected.

Led by sculptor and volunteer Neil Canavan, pictured below, the Gardening Club rebuilt and replanted the sculpture, transforming it into a striking, low-maintenance landmark. 

The piece, welcoming visitors at the ground’s entrance, now features a gabion structure with red bricks forming the cricket ball, white bricks marking the seams and white stones highlighting the flash, ensuring it will remain striking for years to come.

Neil said: “It is the first thing you see when you come into the ground and it was clear that something needed to be done about the sculpture. 

“This is when I suggested doing it like a maintenance-free gabion. 

“I love coming here and it just felt like giving something back to the club that I could actually do.”

Since its launch ahead of the 2024 season, the Gardening Club has taken on projects across the ground, including maintaining the Memorial Garden and adding planters, creating a welcoming environment for visitors. 

The initiative also provides volunteers a space to connect, share skills and enjoy community time together.

Neil added: “Volunteering at the Foundation’s gardening club is such a great way of giving back and also a fantastic social experience. 

“I think the Foundation’s programmes are just as important as the cricket programmes; it reaches people who don’t think that cricket is for them, but makes people realise that you can get involved in different ways, such as the gardening club or the Christmas Fair where I have created driftwood Christmas trees and wooden toys to help raise funds for the Foundation.”

You can find out more about the sculpture and Durham Cricket Foundation’s Gardening Club in an interview with Neil, here.

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