A NEW ‘rammed earth’ sculpture has been unveiled at Hengistbury Head as part of the Bournemouth Emerging Arts Fringe (BEAF) event.

Made by Briony Marshall, ‘Layers of Bournemouth’ aims to remind people “of the unknowable vastness of time”.

It was created by Briony in partnership with students from Arts University Bournemouth over the course of three weeks.

Funded through an Arts Council England grant as part of its support for BEAF, the sculpture took nine days of work at the site to complete following several months of design work.

“Nowadays, sculptors mostly work with man-made materials,” said Briony, a former University of Oxford biochemistry student.

“I wanted this to be about more natural elements and it is inspired by the natural landscape at Hengistbury Head.

“As a scientist I think of man-made materials as coming from nature but they are much newer.

“This sculpture is about reflecting on the age of the earth.”

To make the sculpture, a wooden frame was filled with layers of material from two sites at the headland which were compressed into more than two dozen layers before the frame was removed.

“We had lots of people coming up to us while the sculpture was being made asking questions about it and that is great.

“It exceeded my hopes in terms of how it turned out and I think it works really well.”

The sculpture was one of a number of projects to be awarded funding as part of BEAF’s commissioning programme which it ran for the first time at this year’s event.

On top of money from Arts Council England, Bournemouth Coastal BID and the Boscombe Regeneration Partnership also made contributions.

The piece received praise from members of the public at Hengistbury Head who said that it fitted in well with the headland landscape.

Jane Bertram, 64, who regularly walks her dog there, said: “I think it’s great. It reflects the area really well and fits in with the area.

“Sculptures and statues can be really overbearing but this one is very sympathetic to the natural feel here.”