Walking Men leave beach after three months

Machinery was brought in to lift the five Walking Men from the sand

Five giant bronze statues are moving on after a three-month stint on a Suffolk beach.

The Walking Men, by artist Laurence Edwards, was installed at South Beach in Lowestoft in June, to coincide with the resort's First Light Festival.

Mr Edwards said reaction to the installation had been "extraordinary".

He added that the Walking Men could be the catalyst for a "very large" landmark sculpture for Lowestoft.

The operation to move the statues took quite a long time

The five 8ft (2.4m) bronze figures came to Lowestoft direct from the gardens of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

Their position, walking parallel to the sea but looking towards the beach, got them noticed.

Mr Edwards said he was "really taken aback" by the reaction.

"I said on Instagram 'I'll be here on a deckchair on Sunday at two o'clock - 150 people turned up to chat and just to tell me about the relationships they'd developed with these sculptures," he said.

"I was really touched, it's been an extraordinary journey."

Sculptor Laurence Edwards said the reaction to his Walking Men had been "extraordinary"

The five bronze men have been a familiar sight on the beach for three months

He added that he got the impression "the whole town has been talking about it and coming down to try and work out what these figures are doing, what they are saying, to add their own stories to them, to ask questions about them, and people are regularly visiting them.

"This is art - and it's extraordinary for art to have this kind of reaction," he said.

Laurence Edwards installed the 26ft (7.9m) Yox Man in Yoxford, Suffolk, in 2021

The artist, who also created the Yox Man, in Yoxford, Suffolk, revealed that something even bigger could follow in the footsteps of the Walking Men.

He said he was in discussions with the local council "about a very large sculpture and this is really the beginnings of that journey".

"Something as big as the Yox Man, a statement piece, a landmark piece for Lowestoft," he said.

"It might be five small figures. it might be a giant 30ft figure, it might not even be a figure."