The Woodchester Mosaic replica
Bob Woodward has been here before, but this time it’s all the more painful.
The future of the replica of the Woodchester Roman pavement he and his brother John spent 10 painstaking years putting together is in doubt once more – after he had been convinced it had been found a permanent home.
The exhibition of the 2,500 sq ft mosaic at the visitor building at Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire closed when its five-year lease ran out on Saturday.
This in itself was not a bolt from the blue, since for years the abbey authorities, unhappy with visitor numbers, have made no secret of being unwilling to extend its lease.
And they have also agreed to keep it in storage in its sections for a further six months, in the hope that a new display site might be found.
But that is no comfort for Bob. “It’s a huge disappointment, and I’m very sad about it,” he says at his home in Frenchay.
“When the pavement moved to Prinknash, I really did believe it would stay there for all time. I never expected we’d ever be looking for another site for it.
“That’s what we’re doing – but it’s not easy, and we’re all busy people.”
The Woodward brothers made an agreement to sell the pavement to the Stroud-based entrepreneur Alec Lawless, with whom they have no argument, several years ago.
It was valued by the British Museum at £1 million, but it was agree that they would be paid by him over a 10-year period, and Bob is still closely involved in the project.
“I told Alec that as long as I’m around, I’ll always be there for it,” he says.
Bob, who will be 77 next month, has deep emotional ties with the pavement.
He was inspired to create it when the traffic chaos caused by the exposure of the original mosaic in Woodchester, near Stroud in 1973 made it unlikely that it would ever be seen again.
It drew in 140,000 visitors, and the village simply could not cope.
But the impetus that really made him throw himself into this therapeutic task – imagine a jigsaw puzzle with 1.6 million pieces – was the fatal illness of his young son Robert.
It also prompted him to found the Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood charity; and although he is no longer directly involved in it, he is still proud of its achievements, and the fact that a venture that raised £3,000 in its first year, 1976, brought in £21.5 million as CLIC Sargnt in 2008.
“Of course Robert was such a big part of it,” he says, “but it doesn’t end there.
“It was something I did working alongside my brother John, who was 80 last year.
And Woodchester is special to me because it is close to Stroud, where my father was born.”
In fact the mid-Seventies were an extraordinary time for Bob.
“Looking back, I wonder how I did it,” he says.
“Robert was in a precarious situation with treatment, I was throwing myself into making the mosaic and getting CLIC off the ground, and at the same time our building business was roaring along.
“In 1975 we won a European Architectural Heritage award for our restoration of one side of Market Street in Wotton-under-Edge, and at much the same time we were building the Parklands housing development on 20 acres opposite Wotton Parish Church.”
Making the mosaic was time-consuming in so many ways.
The Roman pavement at Wotton, showing Orpheus charming the animals with his lyre, is the largest north of the Alps, and the brothers, skilled builders of houses but unversed in the intricacies of archaeological research, progressed by trial and error before Bob realised that if the job was to be done properly, he would have to become an expert himself.
He commissioned a photographer to shoot 300 grid-pattern colour slides of the original mosaic, and set about researching the missing areas.
Having left school at 14, he had never tried anything of this kind before, but soon he was at home in the Bodlean and the Ashmolean in Oxford, and given free access to the Society of Antiquarians] in London.
Scouring second-hand bookshops and auctions, he brought together a collection of 400 antique books on mosaic-making.
The Tabernacle at Wotton was bought as a place in which to build and display this unusual work of art, making it in the schoolroom and then carrying it across in sections to the main building across the way.
Back then, Bob was optimistic enough to think that this would be its resting place for life – but the local authority was concerned by the traffic disruption caused by visiting coach parties, and it became clear that it would have to move on.
There have been temporary displays of it in Stroud and elsewhere since then, before the false dawn of the move to Prinknash Abbey.
“I take great comfort from the visitors’ books, and the wonderful comments from people of all walks of life,” says Bob.
“It appeals on so many levels – but I admit that it’s big, and not easy to exhibit.
“I’m not opposed to the thought of people walking on it. Modern technology means there are ways to protect it from footfall.
“The last 18 months at Prinknash have been a nightmare, with people never knowing when it would be open.
“But we have all sorts of leads to pursue, and we’ll just have to see where we go.
“All I really want is to see it on display somewhere that’s right not too far from Woodchester – and once there, for it to stay there permanently.”
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