Newmarket Chess Sculpture Trail, July 2025

Across Newmarket this summer, eight carved wood sculptures have appeared. They sit quietly in streets and green spaces, shaped as familiar chess pieces—King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, and three Pawns—but layered with meanings drawn from the town’s past and present.

Commissioned by Discover Newmarket, supported by Love Newmarket BID and the Town Council, Horseplay is a public art trail grounded in symbolism, storytelling, and place.

Formal Structure, Local Detail

The chessboard gave us the structure. Within it, we explored how each piece—its role, its movement, its story—could reflect something of Newmarket. We worked with the visual language of heraldry and horse racing. Not as explicit reference, but as texture: stables, strategies, bloodlines, hierarchy, legacy. These became the carved elements within each sculpture. The sculpture aesthetic itself was drawn from the historic architecture and design aspects of the town.

Each piece carries an 18-character motto—phrases like Sovereignoftheturf, Guardianoflegacy and (Rob’s favourite) Dadwasfasttoo. Together they speak to competition, identity, and care. Race horses are named with wit and the limit of 18 characters and so this gave the pieces even more local resonance.

Community as Author

The three Pawns were designed through public workshops. We asked school groups and community members to create symbols that represented themselves: not coats of arms, but personal icons. These were redrawn, adapted, and then carved into the final sculptures.

It means that across the trail, there are forms shaped directly by local people. An acorn. A maple leaf. A comfort string. Not generic motifs, but marks of personal meaning made public.

Read about their stories here:

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25327186.newmarket-chess-sculptures-go-show-ahead-new-trail/