The Headington Shark
The Shark became the most famous resident of Headington when it landed in the roof of 2 New High Street on 9 August 1986 This ordinary semi detached house which dates from around 1860 suddenly became the centre of world attention and the headless shark still excites interest today Bill Heine commissioned the shark and still owns the house An American who studied law at Balliol College he was running two Oxford cinemas at the time but since 1988 he has been better known as a Radio Oxford presenter When pressed by journalists to provide a rationale for the shark he suggested the following The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation It is saying something about CND nuclear power Chernobyl and Nagasaki The headless sculpture with the label Untitled 1986 fixed to the gate to the house was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki Created by the sculptor John Buckley it is made of fibreglass weighs four hundredweight and is 25 feet long Oxford City Council tried to get rid of the shark on the grounds that it was dangerous to the public but engineers inspected the roof girders that had been specially installed to support it and pronounced the erection safe The council then decided that the shark was development within the definition contained in Section 22 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 and that as such it had to be removed Their offer to display it in a public building such as a swimming pool was not however accepted by Bill Bill played for time but in 1990 he was refused retrospective planning permission by Oxford City Council Undeterred in 1991 he appealed to the Secretary of State for the Environment then Michael Heseltine and in 1992 Heseltine s Inspector Peter Macdonald came out in favour of the applicant and had the following to say about the shark And so it has survived No one living in Headington notices it much any m
Size: 3836px × 6377px
Location: New High Street, Headington, Oxford
Photo credit: © David Stares / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: abnormal, attraction, bomb, britian, british, building, damage, damaged, davidstaresphotography, defiant, dropped, england, english, fibre, financial, fish, flying, gb, glass, great, headington, house, insurance, investment, kingdom, oxford, oxfordshire, permission, planning, property, roof, shark, surreal, tourist, uk, united, unusual, water, weird
