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A sculpture which cost £180,000 and was damaged earlier this year had not been inspected since 2020, Caerphilly Observer can reveal. 

Rhymney’s Twisted Chimney, which was installed by Caerphilly County Borough Council in 2010 with funding from the Welsh Government, is now in need of repair after it was damaged in a bout of bad weather in March. 

The incident revealed that the structure is not actually made of redbrick – to the surprise of many people. 

Caerphilly Observer submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Caerphilly County Borough Council to find out what maintenance and checks the sculpture has received in the last 12 years.

We can now report that the structure has not been inspected since October 2020. 

In fact, it has received just eight inspections as part of a wider public artwork inspection regime, which was undertaken across the borough by the council’s building control team. 

Additionally, no funds had been spent on the artwork since its installation – other than recent costs to make the structure safe after damage.

A spokesperson for Caerphilly County Borough Council told Caerphilly Observer: “The artwork is inspected regularly. The gap in inspections since 2020 is down to several factors including work pressure on the building control team and the continuing impact of the Covid pandemic.”

It would ‘need to be looked after’

As an outdoor sculpture, the preservation of the Twisted Chimney “differs fundamentally from the preservation of other artworks in an important respect – they are on permanent exhibition,” according to the Getty Conservation Institute, which is an international organisation dedicated to art conservation. 

The sculpture, which is now 12-years-old, was designed by American artist Brian Tolle and is carved in polycarbonate, coated in a waterproof covering and then hand-painted.

Such materials are “specialist” and “would still need to be looked after”, according to an artist who works in sculpture at Cardiff Metropolitan University. 

When asked by Caerphilly Observer if the damage to the Rhymney artwork was avoidable, the council spokesperson said: “We have as yet been unable to establish the exact cause of the damage to the artwork. 

“However, it did occur during a particularly heavy storm with extreme wind gusts recorded throughout south Wales, so it is reasonable to assume that this extreme weather was the main contributor to the damage.

“We cannot as yet rule out vandalism as a possible cause. There is no local intelligence to suggest that there was any damage to the artwork prior to the storm.

“Up until the recent damage was made safe, there has been no maintenance spend on the artwork structure itself. This is because the inspections had ascertained that the structure was sound and didn’t require any maintenance/remedial works to be conducted.”

What about other artworks across the borough?

There are a number of pieces of outdoor artworks across Caerphilly County borough. 

One of those is the Tommy Cooper statue in Caerphilly town centre. 

Another FOI request submitted to Caerphilly County Borough Council by Caerphilly Observer revealed how this statue is maintained compared to the Twisted Chimney in Rhymney. 

The bronze statue is part of the same wider public artwork routine as the Twisted Chimney.

The statue has been checked once a year for the last three years – in October 2021, December 2022 and even as recently as January 2023. 

However, there have been fewer overall checks, just seven since it was installed in 2008.

More repair work has been undertaken in comparison, with work completed on the plinth, the bronze panel and several times on the cobbled floor-scape around the statue.

This article was updated on January 3 2024 to correct the date of the installation of the Twisted Chimney. This was 2010, not as originally stated in 2011.