8:04am UK, Thursday January 13, 2005

A village plans to put up a £10,000 sculpture to celebrate its industrial heritage - a pile of dung!

The sculpture is due to be erected on the village green in Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, to mark the work of 19th century coprolite miners, who dug up fossilised dung for use as fertiliser.

180 dung bassingbourn village

Bassingbourn village

It will feature four bronze dung globules the size of large beach balls sitting on a one-metre-high brick plinth, and should be in place later this year.

South Cambridgeshire District Council is paying half the cost - villagers have raised the rest.

Local retired woodwork teacher David Billings, who lives in Bassingbourn, came up with the idea after the district council invited villages in the area to think of ways their heritage could be celebrated in public art works.

"I think it's an excellent idea," said parish council chairman Jack White.

"We've been planning it for a long time and it has the backing of villagers. It's unusual and imaginative and will celebrate our history.

"Coprolite mining was a thriving industry in this area in the 19th century and a lot of local people were involved."

"Other ideas were put forward - a heron sculpture, because herons were once common here, and a plane to commemorate the American bombers which flew from here during the Second World War. But villagers preferred this."