{"id":710313,"date":"2026-07-25T09:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710313\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:58:08","slug":"berwick-legend-jimmy-strength-statue-unveiled-on-high-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710313\/","title":{"rendered":"Berwick legend Jimmy Strength statue unveiled on high street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A statue of a legendary strongman who carried his pony through a river rather than pay a bridge toll has been unveiled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The cast bronze statue of Jimmy Strength is now sitting in Berwick&#8217;s high street to the &#8220;delight&#8221; of tourists and locals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The piece was commissioned by the Berwick Rotary Club alongside the Berwick Town Team and Freeman of Berwick. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sculptor Sebastien Boyesen said it had been &#8220;an absolute joy&#8221; to create Jimmy Strength and he had loved getting to know the people of the town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said: &#8220;It is made out of cast bronze and it should be good for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have been a sculptor all my life and sometimes you do work and think I really hope they like it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jimmy Strength, who stood at just 5ft 2ins tall (1.5m), lived in Berwick in the 19th Century and tales of his strength quickly became myths.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was said he came to Berwick Bridge riding a pony and was advised the toll was a halfpenny for pedestrians and one penny for mounted riders, so he paid the halfpenny and carried the pony over the bridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alongside his remarkable strength, he was also known for being a musician, travelling around the area playing his violin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A statue of a legendary strongman who carried his pony through a river rather than pay a bridge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-710313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710313","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=710313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}