Cedra At Woolbeding House, Sussex

Woolbeding House, near Midhurst in Sussex, is owned by the National Trust and the garden was recently opened to the public. I was asked for a piece to replace a grand old cedar tree that had fallen in a storm. On my first introductory visit I had a feeling that I had been here before, and it turned out that I had visited the owners of the house with my mother when I was about 10 years old and had tea under the cedar tree.

It took over a year to get planning permission but at last the piece we have agreed to be called Cedra has now been commissioned.

Cedra is one of my Coanda series. These pieces take their name from Henri Coandã, who has been called ‘the father of fluid dynamics’; he was particularly intrigued by the way fluids cling to surfaces. The water is allowed to spill over the edge of a bowl and adhere to its underside, converging towards the central trunk. It is fabricated from cast, spun and rolled mirror-polished stainless steel.