British Ironworks Centre & Shropshire Sculpture Park

The British Ironworks Centre and Shropshire Sculpture Park lies just off the A5, five kilometres south-east of Oswestry in rural Shropshire. The site combines a working forge, silversmiths and a clock repair workshop with a sculpture park and falconry display. A large showroom displays metalwork for sale alongside the café and shop. The centre is known for its safari trail of metal sculptures, including a gorilla made entirely of spoons. In 2013 Uri Geller commissioned the spoon gorilla, which grew to twelve feet tall using 40,000 spoons from around the world. The centre also created steel forget-me-nots for a Shropshire hospice, with a thousand flowers unveiled in 2016 and the first batch selling out within hours. Visitors walk through the sculpture park to see works such as the Knife Angel, a twenty-seven-foot-tall angel made from 100,000 surrendered blades. The campaign collected weapons from every UK police force, with some deliveries including incorrectly packaged explosives that required a controlled detonation. Personal messages from families affected by knife crime are engraved on many of the blades.