The Teaching

Sitting in the shadow of the towering trees framing the view to St Mary's Church sit four contented souls in stone.

This is The Teaching by sculptor and stonemason David Edwick; a gentle replica of a father and his sons, chiselled and cherished, and shared with the people of Ponteland.

The scene is one of connection and contentment. How do you capture tenderness in stone? Such warmth in a cold substance? Such life in stillness?

The boys, small and close in age, are the pot model of each other, with neat schoolboy haircuts and attentive expressions. I love the way they are so connected, with the smallest boy closely clutching his brother's head, hanging on for love and dear life.

I love too the lack of light creeping in between each head. This is one solid hulking piece of limestone, and there are no joins, yet the connection is implicit through the closeness of their faces, head to head.

This is a dad who loves his sons indeed, and who is loved in return.

One boy sits on his father's knee. His little hand overlays his father's, and the third boy clasps the huge hand of his father. And the hand that carved the stone raised the boys, for this is an image of sculptor and stonemason David Edwick with his sons.

A fitting piece to write about following Father's Day.

David was asked to produce the piece as a millennium project and worked with a local school.

He said “I remember doing some wonderfully messy plaster workshops with the local school in a parent and child format so that the kids had all the messy fun, and the parents did a lot of the tidying up afterwards! Needless to say, there were some very imaginative ideas, including overflowing vessels and not a few books. The gesture of the hands, counting on one's fingers for example, goes back long before books.”

The land where the sculpture sits is known as Coates Green and was where Coates Endowed School once stood. Established in 1722 at the behest of a rich merchant named Richard Coates, who lived at Horton Grange (now a fancy pants wedding venue).

Upon his death, he left instructions that a charity school should be erected “For 12 boys and 12 girls to provide them with an education”.

The school would provide free clothing and education for 24 of the poorest children in the village.

The original school was the building on the corner of the road that is now used as an estate agent. It initially housed 15 children, but in time, the number of children in need increased, and a second floor was added in 1834.

By the time the Education Act of 1870 was introduced, over 100 children were in poverty and need, and accessed the services of the school. For a school built to house half the number of children, it was no longer fit for purpose, and conditions were substandard, so the school board threatened The Endowed School with closure. However, Merton College, Oxford and the Church authorities stepped in and supported the building of a new school, The Coates Institute and Reading Room, which was situated on the site where the sculpture sits today.

The sculpture is a reminder of the significance of Richard Coates, the church and its support in educating the poor children of Ponteland.

The stone came from Hodge Close, a quarry in the southern Lake District. David told me “It turned out to be very much harder than I had imagined, and I needed a new set of granite carving chisels! The work spread over a couple of months, and it's fair to say that the stone is durable.”

David shared some photographs of the work in progress and explained about the density of the limestone when trying to carve the images of his sons, “[Here is] a ghostly image in the early stages of roughing out. You can see darker inclusions, which I recall were harder than the paler parts. They weren't intended to be accurate portraits, which was beyond my skills, but they were good enough for the lads to be quite pleased with them I think.”

I always like to take in the tactile nature of the artwork I'm looking at, and to touch, this was solid and unyielding. I couldn't imagine the effort it would have taken to chisel away features in faces in such an intangible substance.

David explained, “The lads were really good at trying out poses for me as you can see in the snaps on the wall. I had images of Henry Moore's Madonna and Child, some Egyptian work and one or two medieval heads! I even posed for myself!”

I've enjoyed spending some time with David over the last couple of years, and he's a gentle, eloquent giant, bobbing down to enter the pub when we've met for a pint. His big Dad hands are a key part of his creativity and so important in all that he does, and this is a beautiful real-life image of the hands that did all the work, and then them carved in stone.

I initially found David when researching the Fell Pony Way Markers at Dukesfield Smelt Mill when Jilly KA had wondered about who'd made them. I did a little research and found out that he'd designed and carved many of the beautiful stone sculptures I'd already admired over the years across Northumberland and Durham. You will have seen his splendid stonework on your travels and marvelled at his lyrical lettering (see Warksburn Old Church) or his pleasingly polished ouroboros otter at Heatherslaw Corn Mill which he admitted received its shine from sheep rubbing their bums on it!!!

It was a fortuitous meeting as he's a lovely human with so much interesting chat and intelligent perspectives on the world. When I'm out and about now, I can readily recognise his style, and I text him and ask for the lowdown on that specific sculpture.

Such a clever pair of hands and head.

This time, when I asked, he sent me this...a photo of his lads that they'd sent him for a special birthday. He said “Yes, that's me and my boys. They are now just a bit taller than the sculpture and as a little gift for my 70th birthday, they took a photo of themselves posing just behind it. From left to right: Mike, the oldest, Tom the youngest and Will the middlest!”

What a beautiful image of love and care and connection.