Meet the Kelpies, Scotland's giant addition to the UK sculptural skyline

They will create one of the most dramatic gateways through which to enter Britain: two vast equine heads, centrepiece of a £49m eco-park near Edinburgh, are to guard the entrance to a canal link connecting the Firth of Forth with the Clyde in Glasgow.

Each the height of a 10-storey building, and standing a third taller than the Angel of the North, the heads will dominate a 740-acre park of forests, walks and cycleways, the Helix project, being built on scrubland near Grangemouth refinery.

The sculptures will be known as the Kelpies, after the mythical water horses in Scottish lochs and rivers.



The final three-metre-high maquettes have been finished in the studio of sculptor Andy Scott in Glasgow. Over the next weeks, the dark, unpolished steel heads will be galvanised with a bright silvery finish to protect against corrosion.

When installed in 2010 or 2011, each horse's head will be 35 metres in height - 15 metres higher than the Angel of the North - and weigh 400 tonnes.

Unlike Antony Gormley's sculpture outside Gateshead, the Kelpies will be functional as well as aesthetic, operating the first lock on the east end of the Forth-Clyde canal near Falkirk. The heads will slowly rock forward and back to push water into the lock and raise boats into the canal.

There are more photos here.