Some described the scene as “spooky” and “freaky”, comparing it to an episode of Doctor Who and questioning whether aliens had landed.
“It was very creepy,” one local said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Lisa Marion and Holly Jones also stopped to take pictures. “I thought I was going mad at first, I had to stop to take a photo,” said Holly.
The mystery was later explained as part of One Man Army, a travelling sculptural installation by Cheshire-based artist Colin Spofforth.
The project explores Britain’s lost industrial and social heritage by temporarily placing repeated casts of a single, solemn figure in locations shaped by work and industry.
Each installation is filmed and shared on social media before moving on, leaving behind images and conversations in the communities it visits.
The figures were positioned opposite the former steelworks, a site built in 1796 that once employed around 2,500 people at its peak.
Steel production came to an end there in 1990, when 1,100 workers lost their jobs, marking the closure of a major part of the area’s industrial history.