Restoring Colston’s statue – graffiti, bike tyre and all

A key concern for the team working to restore the statue of Edward Colston is how to preserve the “fragile” graffiti daubed over its body.

When the bronze artefact was pulled from the Floating Harbour last week, it revealed remarkable secrets in the form of a rolled-up magazine from 1895, signed by the men at the Coalbrookdale Foundry that cast him.

This, along with an old bike tyre hanging from the statue when it was retrieved, will all be painstakingly preserved, as will the red paint coating Colston’s face, graffiti on his body and some 500 Black Lives Matter placards left at the now-empty plinth.

The work is being done in a secret location by the council’s conservations team, who might usually be expecting to clean off graffiti from a historic artefact, rather than make sure it doesn’t flake away.

For the record, the statue has the acronym BLM on its torso, signifying Black Lives Matter, and the word ‘prick’ in blue paint on its remaining coattail.

While Colston himself just about survived being dragged across the centre, in front of the Watershed, and being tipped into the harbour, bits of him did not. He has a rather large, heart-shaped hole in his backside, the staff he had leaned on for 125 years in pensive thought is still missing, as is one of his coattails.

Colston is missing a few bits after being dragged from his plinth and chucked into the water – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

The statue was filled with mud and water and has been held at the secret location since it was pulled from the harbour, where conservators are carefully drying it out, and looking to preserve everything about the statue, including its well-documented toppling that made headlines around the world.

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Read more: Protesters topple Colston’s statue amid jubilant scenes in Bristol

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Fran Coles, Bristol City Council’s conservation and documentations manager, is the person tasked with the job of drying him out and working out how to preserve him and his graffiti.

“When he came out of the harbour he was full of mud and sediment from the harbour floor, so we were quite keen to remove that very quickly in case that had any effect on the statue itself or on the paint surfaces that are now on the statue,” she said.

“So my role was to come in, assess the condition and clean any mud off without causing any further damage to the statue.

“Considering his journey to the harbour, he’s actually in pretty good condition. You can see the scrapes and scuffs of him as he was being rolled to the harbourside, but they are clean and stable,” she added.

“He lost one of his coattails on the journey, and also his walking stick or staff. And the only significant structural damage to the statue was at the foot. Obviously, when they pulled him over, there was a considerable amount of pressure right at that point, and that’s caused a break in the metal itself.

“But overall, he’s structurally sound, and our main concern is making sure that we can conserve the paint, the graffiti that’s on him now because that’s actually become the most fragile part of the sculpture.

“It has become part of the story of the object, of the statue, so our job is to try and retain that as much as possible while stabilising the statue for the long term.”

Ray Barnett, head of collections and archives at Culture & Creative Industries and Fran Coles with the statue – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

Fran said they have not found the coattail or staff. Footage indicates they probably came off fairly soon after he was brought down, so by the time he was rolled to the harbour, they were already gone.

“I’m not sure if it is chewing gum, but he certainly has something that has been stuck up his nose,” she added.

“At the moment, our hope is that our objects conservator will be coming in as a next step to assess in more detail the condition of the statue, she will probably look more carefully at the surface, and how we preserve the surface layer – because I’ve already seen today as he’s drying, some problems with delamination of a historic wax that was put onto the surface.

“She will be coming in to do that investigation, and depending on what she finds, that will be our treatment plan.

“It’s a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’, particularly in terms of the current restrictions, things will be taking a little bit longer than they would do normally in terms of the treatment proposal.

“But because we want to present ‘as is’, the work is not as long as it otherwise might have been. So we’ll do our work and when people have decided his final situation, we’ll have him ready.”

The statue is being dried out and prepared for the museum to put in an exhibition – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

How exactly Colston will be displayed again to the public remains to be seen – no decision has yet been taken, and the mayor, council and museum bosses at least have no immediate rush – the coronavirus pandemic means that the visitor attractions that could host him aren’t open anyway.

But when he is displayed, the story will be told of how he was erected and toppled.

Speaking about the magazine found rolled up inside the statue, Fran said: “The magazine was a surprise and it’s added a real layer to the story of the manufacture and the people who helped create the statue back at the foundry in Shropshire.

“So that was a really interesting find, particularly because we have not been able to identify the names that we found in the magazine, so from census data we know that they were fitters at the Coalbrookdale foundry in the 1880s and 1890s in Shropshire, so that’s an interesting human story there.

“The other thing that we have preserved is the bike tyre that came up with him. It’s just such an iconic image, such a historic moment that as he came out of the harbour, there was a tyre stuck hanging from his coat tails. It seemed appropriate that we preserved that as well.”

A rolled-up magazine from 1895 was found inside the statue – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

Fran says the magazine find added a real layer to the story of the manufacture and the people who helped create the statue – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

The placards left where the statue once stood will be preserved as part of the exhibition – photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

Main photo by Jon Kent/Bristol Live

Read more: Amazing secrets revealed inside Colston’s statue