FANS of Wallace and Gromit have to leave the Downend area to visit statues on this year’s Gromit Unleashed 3 trail – but they won’t have to go far.
The trail runs until August 31, to raise funds for the Grand Appeal for Bristol Children’s Hospital.
Downend’s WG Grace-inspired statue, Champion, was a big hit on the 2018 trail but the area has missed out this time.
Two of the closest statues this year are examples of the new character on the trail, Norbot the robot gnome from recent Wallace and Gromit film Vengeance Most Fowl.
Starcatcher, a Norbot painted by artist and storyteller Oliver Jeffers, is in Kingswood Park, while Sweet and Tidy, a Norbot painted by artist Simon Tozer, is at Warmley Waiting Room on the Bristol & Bath Railway Path.
Visitors have been flocking to Pucklechurch to see Mowgli, the Jungle Book-inspired Gromit figure at the Rose and Crown pub.
Landlady Rhi Wilkins said people had come from as far as Ireland to the Parkfield Road pub beer garden to view the statue, decorated by Bristol artist Lindsay Cameron.
There are three sculptures just north of the M4.
Austentatious, a Gromit featuring a live hedge grown by Agrumi Topiary, sits at the Kendleshire golf club in Coalpit Heath.
Kendleshire operations manager Rob McCullough said: “All we have to do is look after and water him.”
In Winterbourne, Rosebud, a Gromit designed by artist Tanith Gould, stands outside estate agent AJ Homes in Flaxpits Lane.
At the West Country Water Park in Trench Lane, Frampton Cotterell, trail hunters have the chance to put their feet up and sit next to Fisherman’s Friend, a statue of Wallace on a bench.
The statue, designed by artist Elaine Carr, comes complete with wellies, fishing gear and cheese-related tattoos.
Over the Bristol boundary there are two Gromits in Eastville: Marigold, by artist Sofia Barton, is at Ikea, while Walk the Lime is inside Wai Yee Hong Chinese supermarket in Eastgate Road. The design has been created by artist Katie Wallis.
Since the first Gromit Unleashed trail in 2013, followed in 2015 by Shaun in the City, then Gromit Unleashed in 2018, £20 million has been raised for the charity, through sponsorship, donations, exhibitions, souvenirs and the auctions held at the end of the trail.
Among those producing designs this year is Sir Paul McCartney, whose Gromit based on The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine is at The Wave in Easter Compton.
More details of the Gromit Unleashed 3 trail can be found at www.gromitunleashed.org.uk.
• Is your family following the Gromit Unleashed 3 trail this summer? If you’d like to see one of your pictures in the Voice, email it, with the name of the statue and anyone in the picture, to news@downendvoice.co.uk by August 10.