Bronze horse 'parades' through Dorchester

Hundreds of people turned out to see a bronze sculpture of a brewery dray horse be paraded through Dorchester.

The 12ft (3.7m) horse was drawn through the Dorset county town on a dray cart by two horses before being positioned at Brewery Square.

The sculpture, called Drummer, has been created as a tribute to the last dray horses that worked at the site when it was home to the Eldridge Pope brewery.

Artist Shirley Pace, 81, came out of retirement to complete the project.

The sculpture took six weeks to mould out of clay and stands so tall that Mrs Pace had to use a cherry picker to reach the top of it.

Mrs Pace, from West Ashling near Chichester, West Sussex, said: "I absolutely loved creating him. He took over my life for those six weeks.

"I lived it and breathed it. He was everything to me."

Drummer is the second dray horse sculpted by Mrs Pace for a former brewery development.

Her bronze artwork of a horse named Jacob was flown over London to The Circle, near Tower Bridge, slung under a helicopter in October 1987.

Mrs Pace said: "I never thought I would do another one so I certainly didn't think I would see the day that I'd watch a horse of mine being pulled through Dorchester."