Silly Moos!

These are the "Concrete Cows of Milton Keynes", an iconic contribution to urban sculpture.

They were created in 1978 by Canadian-born artist, Liz Leyh. There are three cows and three calves, approximately half life size. The artist was an "Artist in Residence" in the early days of Milton Keynes and part of her role was to lead community participation in art. The Cows was one of a number of installations created during her stay. The base armatures were metal, with chicken wire used to create the general shape, then stuffed with newspaper. The original colouring of the cows was achieved using dyes. Some cows were brown. It is only through the council painting the cows that the uniform black and white has appeared. The artist also ensured that each cow had a heart shape used as part of the pattern on the cow skin.

The cows were originally constructed and set up at Stacey Hill Farm near Wolverton, where Leyh her studio.

The original Cows are currently in Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre (as in our photograph here). However the replicas in Bancroft are better known, sited next to the A422 (Monks Way), a dual carriageway with redway cycle- and footpaths. Using the Milton Keynes grid system, the cows are located next to the northern carriageway of H3 Monks Way between V5 Great Monks St. and V6 Grafton St.) where it passes under the West Coast Main Line, near its junction with the A5.

On their site in a public park, the Cows have suffered many indignities - though it could be argued that these were consistent with their conceptual origins. Sometimes they have simply been vandalized, while at other times they have been painted pink, become zebras, become skeletal, had pyjama bottoms added, have been beheaded in the style of Damien Hirst, have acquired BSE (mad cow disease) graffiti, had one of the calves kidnapped (with ransom notes to the local papers). One of the Cows briefly enjoyed the services of a papier-mâché bull. When UK Culture Minister Kim Howells referred to modern art trends as "conceptual bullshit", the Cows acquired concrete cow-pats. Local legend has it that the ears of the Cows have shrunk over the years, as more protruding versions have been knocked off by enthusiastic riders.

So what were we doing in MK on a busy Saturday, with throngs of people milling around? There were two purposes. One was to test my survival capability on an outing in the face of my bad leg (The answer is barely -- it was pretty cold outside, and we walked for substantial distances in the shopping centre. Sitting (fairly) still on a bus for several hours was not such a brilliant idea, 'though the bus trip was good, with fine sightings of new-born baby beezles (lambs) in the fields, particularly between Buckingham and MK. The second purpose of being in MK was to take an object for repair to a branch of John Lewis (the nearest "local" branches other than MK are in Reading, High Wycombe, Newbury and Swindon: none brilliantly easy to get to).

Inside the shopping centre itself, the MK bus company had installed one of their buses (to cajole the public to "get on board"), along with a very friendly representative, who plied us with timetables, nice sweets, and some groovy pink ball-point pens. I know someone who will covet one of the pens (and most probably get it!).

One nice touch about our photograph before we leave it: I hope you can see that the cows are grazing in a make-belief field, and that field contains a collection of daffodils that are just now coming into bloom. Quite a nice contrast to the very silly Moos!