Endcliffe Park toad sculpture to be replaced after badger damage

A much-loved statue is to be replaced after the original wooden sculpture was damaged by badgers.

The carving of a toad perched atop a pile of books has been a popular feature in Sheffield's Endcliffe Park since it was installed in 1997.

After a fundraising campaign by the Friends of the Porter Valley it is set to be replaced with a more durable metal version.

Sculptor Jason Thomson, who designed the original statue, said: "People think it's kids jumping on the toad that destroyed it but it's badgers clawing in to get at the grubs inside."

The wooden sculpture has already been replaced once in 2010 and Anne Le Sage, from the Friends of the Porter Valley, said it was now time to let the latest incarnation go "back to nature".

Mr Thomson said he was "resigned" to this moment.

"There comes a point when the timber becomes ripe with funghi and the smell of the wood boring beetle larvae attracts the badgers," he aid.

"It's obviously great nutrition for them."

Mr Thomson said the inspiration for the sculpture commissioned for the 1997 Off the Shelf Literary Festival came about by pure chance.

"I was walking through the park looking for some inspiration, and I was thinking I didn't really want to do a squirrel or an owl and suddenly an actual toad jumped on my girlfriend's foot and it announced itself as this brilliant little creature," he said.

The replacement sculpture will be made from spheroidal graphite cast iron, with the hope that it can be installed before Christmas.

Mr Thomson said: "It could last for twenty thousand years. It's a strange thought. You think about Neolithic sites and the Sphynx in Egypt lasting forever, not necessarily a toad in Endcliffe Park."

Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds , catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here