A closer look at "Unity"

Some reading and relaxing today but I also made a start on the Great Wardrobe Re-organisation which is all part of my plan to declutter the house by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, it was also the day for the weekly food shop.

Before going home with the shopping, I decided to grab my camera and nip over the road from the supermarket to have a closer look at the Unity sculpture, which sits on the roundabout of the Pontypridd turnoff from the A470. I'd only ever driven past it until today and had never seen it up close.

Despite its name, it was a controversial artwork at the time it went up, not least because it went over budget and many people thought that the money could have been better spent on local services.

However, it's there now and is a pretty striking artwork, especially when the Autumn sun hits it.

It's meant to represent the coming together of river, rail and road networks, and people, as well as the three valleys which make up the county.

There are three elements to it: "rail","bridge" and "bows". "Rail" is to symbolise what a huge impact the railway had on the town; "bridge" is for the old bridge which gives Pontypridd its name and which was once the longest single-span bridge in Europe; and "bows" represents the chains made on a site nearby, used by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in his ships, and the mining industry which provided fuel for British shipping.

If you're interested, you can read more about it here: Pontypridd's Unity Sculpture