{"id":394891,"date":"2025-09-03T15:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394891\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:46:14","slug":"countys-dragon-sculpture-damaged-with-saw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394891\/","title":{"rendered":"County’s dragon sculpture damaged with saw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelly WithersBBC News, Somerset <\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

The wooden sculpture was created in 2023 to represent Somerset’s dragon symbol<\/p>\n

Several parts of a “much-loved” wooden sculpture of the Somerset dragon have been sawn off.<\/p>\n

The dragon statue on Taunton’s High Street is missing an arm, toes, an ear and its tongue.<\/p>\n

Somerset Council says it believes the sculpture, which was unveiled in 2023, has been targeted by vandals.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said it is currently reviewing the best course of action with regard to repairs.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The wooden dragon sculpture is missing a limb, tongue and toes<\/p>\n

The 13ft (4 m) high wooden dragon was created by chainsaw artist Matthew Crabb to reference the county’s folklore.<\/p>\n

It was commissioned by the former Somerset and West Taunton Council.<\/p>\n

Mr Crabb’s friend and fellow chainsaw artist Simon O’Rourke said: “He created this sculpture to make something really nice for the town.”<\/p>\n

Mr O’Rourke added: “It’s not a straightforward repair. One of the things about making repairs is that you’re then applying new wood to old and it dries at a different rate and it will look very different for quite a while.”<\/p>\n

Somerset Council said: “Repairs will be carried out when we have determined how we can ensure the continued protection of the sculpture which has become a much-loved part of Taunton’s town centre.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelly WithersBBC News, Somerset BBC The wooden sculpture was created in 2023 to represent Somerset’s dragon symbol Several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-394891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115141148125233102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}