Why Lord Hill is not his old self
And had a great fall...
From the top of Sir Rowland Hill's Monument at Hawkstone it is reputed that you can see up to 13 counties on a clear day.
But if you look at the statue of Sir Rowland, the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London in 1549, that stands on top of the column, you might notice he is not looking his old self, based on our old pictures of the statue.
And there's a reason for that. Poor Sir Rowland took a tumble. One account has it that he was struck by lightning, another that he was blown down.
Either way, the original statue came off the top of the monument, sometimes called the obelisk, and the statue that stands there now is a replacement.
When did the original come a cropper? Well, if you can help with that, we'd love to hear from you.
Our best information is that it was blown down and destroyed in 1936, and that information comes from a caption in a family album owned by Sir Beville (Billy) Stanier.
While we haven't been able to confirm the date, the Stanier family were virtually on the spot, as they lived at the time at The Citadel only a few hundred yards away.
The monument itself was erected by Sir Richard Hill in 1795, standing 100ft tall and supporting the statue.
Hawkstone Park fell into disrepair before it was bought and rejuvenated by the Barclay Brothers in the early 1990s. The fall of the statue had broken parts of the turret and platform.
The shaft of the column itself was also eroded, the door and iron railing of the platform had disappeared and plants were sprouting from the base.
The new owners set about lovingly repairing the column, stitching the stonework back together and replacing missing items including doors and an inscription plate.
Sculptor Guy Portelli was commissioned to create a new statue of Sir Rowland Hill, which was cast in 1992 and now graces the top of the monument.
The base and all but the top six courses of the shaft are constructed of soft pink sandstone.
The top of the shaft, capital, platform and turret are in a white, harder sandstone.
The Tuscan-style column, which is Grade One listed, has a square base with a door in one side and recessed panels in the others.
If the 1936 date for the fall of the original statue is correct, we haven't so far managed to find a contemporary report of it, but the Market Drayton Advertiser did carry a story about a severe lightning storm in the Hodnet area on September 16, although no mention was made of any damage to the statue.
And did any of the damaged pieces survive – and if so what happened to them?
