Country Life
Trending: Fergus Granville grins after collecting some new material. Credit: Glyn Satterley for Country Life
Fashioned from driftwood, barbed wire, sea urchins and barnacle-encrusted plastic mannequins, Earl Granville’s eclectic sculptures are inspired by the Hebridean island of North Uist’s wild weather and terrain, discovers David Profumo. Photographs by Glyn Satterley for Country Life.
It’s a dreich October morning on the east coast of the island, the Hebridean sea temperature is 13˚C and a man of 60 clad in a wetsuit is cutting loose some female busts he’s tethered underwater for two years. They’re constellated in barnacles and covered in grape-like ascidians (sea squirts) and he grimaces with cold and triumph, for these mannequins are destined for his studio meet Fergus, 6th Earl Granville, laird of North Uist, godson of The Queen, who’s rapidly becoming a sculptor of rising repute.