The Barnwell Sentence

What most of us call 'The Whale Wall' is actually just the beginning of a 100-metre artwork officially called 'The Barnwell Sentence'. ​Comprised of bronze, brass, glass and stone elements, this winds its way through the Cambridge Riverside development, leaving clues about the history of this site.

 

It starts at the entrance on Newmarket Road with an Atlantic lava stone wall measuring 30 metres long by three metres high. Cut from a single stone block, the wall is embedded with imagery made from Belgian blue limestone and Blue Savoy marble.

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The wall depicts the history and heritage of this site: prehistoric archaeology (here a life-sized whale skeleton similar to that lovingly serving the entrance to Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology), strawberries representing Strawberry Fair on neighbouring Midsummer Common, and a blazer and the crest of Brunswick Junior School, which was on this site throughout the  20th century. 

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'The Barnwell Sentence' continues down the pavement adjacent to Newton Court in the form of a series of embedded brass chair imprints which lead you to into the development to discover two more sculptures: carp fish from the monks’ ponds of the 11th century Barnwell Prior nearby, swimming in the paving, frozen in time as bronze sculptures set in clear resin and glass, and the final sculpture which is a life-size bronze chair which was the very chair used to create the imprints that run throughout the sentence.

 

The title of this installation – ‘The Barnwell Sentence’ makes reference to Cambridge Riverside’s proximity to the Barnwell area of the city.