Across the borough of Wyre, in seafront gardens, market squares, and on windswept promenades, sculptures and monuments tell the stories that matter most to the communities that placed them there. They mark moments of pride and of grief, celebrate founding figures and unsung families, and keep alive the memory of lives lived in the shadow of the sea.
Fleetwood, perhaps more than anywhere else in Wyre, wears its history on its streets. In Euston Gardens, the historic heart of the town Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood envisioned, the borough’s most celebrated works stand side by side. The obelisk at the centre of the gardens, erected by public subscription, commemorates James Abram and George Greenall, two fishermen who gave their lives in November 1890 attempting to save others during a violent storm in Morecambe Bay. Nearby, the Welcome Home statue by sculptor Anita Lafford depicts a mother, daughter, and their dog on the esplanade, a tribute to the families of Fleetwood’s fishermen who, for generations, gathered on this very spot to watch for their loved ones returning from the sea. Sponsored by the Lofthouse Company, makers of Fisherman’s Friend, the inscription on the statue’s plinth speaks plainly: “Erected as a tribute to families of Fleetwood fishermen who have down the years shared the dangers and uncertainties of the industry.”
And then, unveiled in May 2018 after years of community fundraising, there is the bronze statue of Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood himself, the man who founded the town. Created by Lancaster sculptor Alan Ward, Sir Peter stands holding a lighthouse, with a rabbit at his feet, a nod to the warren of sand dunes on which his ambitious Victorian town was built. It was a long time coming; remarkably, the town’s founder had no statue in the place that bears his name until nearly two centuries after he first imagined it.
These pieces, and the many others in this collection, are more than public art. They are acts of remembrance, of gratitude, and of civic pride, placed in the landscape to ensure that Wyre’s stories are never forgotten.
