Wellingborough sculptor's new shoe design to celebrate town's industrial heritage

A sculptor has come up with a new creation to celebrate Wellingborough’s industrial heritage.

Mick Henson is a Wellingborough sculptor with a passion for large sculptures, including the ‘Red Knight’ at Wicksteed Park.

He has always been proud to work in Northamptonshire’s traditional industries as a tannery engineer and boot and shoe maintenance engineer and considers himself lucky to be Barker’s maintenance engineer.

His family connection with Wellingborough and the shoe trade go back many generations and the idea behind his latest creation, a shoe sculpture, is to celebrate the town’s industrial heritage.

It all started back in January 2020 when Mick was approached by Kettering Park Junior School and asked if he would be interested in working on a project with the school’s Year 8.

At the time he was already working on an idea for a sculpture made from clicking press knives used to cut out the shoe components, which had been donated by Barker Shoes, NPS shoes and Loakes.

He combined the two projects so the children would have experience of working on a large sculpture.

He used the press knives to cut out the shoe patterns in card before welding the shoe together.

The card templates were then given to the children to put designs on and later would be fitted into the shoe sculpture.

But sadly things didn’t quite turn out as planned, with Mick telling the Northants Telegraph: “Unfortunately, a couple of days before the sculpture was to be exhibited at Kettering Museum, we went into lockdown and the children never got to see the finished sculpture.”

However, all is not lost as the shoe sculpture is now on display at Wellingborough Library in Pebble Lane.

Mick said there has been interest in having the sculpture at other libraries in the county so hopefully more people will be able to see it once the current display finishes.

And he added: “The shoe will be at Wellingborough for at least a month.”

Previous pieces by Mick include ‘The Archer’ at Wrenn School and the ‘Son of the Soil’ sculpture at Wellingborough’s Castle Theatre.

He is also the artist behind the ‘Red Knight’ at Wicksteed Park in Kettering.