{"id":316814,"date":"2025-12-15T07:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T07:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/316814\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T07:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T07:23:07","slug":"sylvia-townsend-warner-statue-unveiled-in-dorchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/316814\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvia Townsend Warner statue unveiled in Dorchester"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She lived in Dorset with her long-term partner, Valentine Ackland, in the early 20th Century and was a trailblazer for lesbian visibility and acceptance at a time when same-sex relationships defied societal expectations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She was a prolific writer and poet whose works included Lolly Willowes, The Corner That Held Them and Kingdoms of Elfin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The \u00a360,000 life-size statue depicts her sitting on a public bench, with a cat at her feet &#8211; a reference to Townsend Warner&#8217;s love of felines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The installation encountered a number of setbacks involving site restrictions, a sewage pipe and heavy rain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Anya Pearson, of Visible Women, who also led the Mary Anning project, said she was relieved to see the project completed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s not a guidebook on how to raise statues,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is on a really busy shopping street at the busiest time of year. It&#8217;s been much more stressful than Mary.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She lived in Dorset with her long-term partner, Valentine Ackland, in the early 20th Century and was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-316814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}