2014 Vacation: UK / England / Yorkshire Sculpture Park / Ha-ha bridge by Brian Fell

Ha-ha bridge – by Brian Fell

Location: Yorkshire Sculpture Park [YSP].

Ha-ha bridge is over the Ha-ha landscape

Brian Fell is a sculptor, metalworker and artist building steel, cold forged metal work,
producing a wide range of work from large public artworks to small domestic artworks.

Ha ha Wall

Ha Ha Landscape

From the article Where City meets Landscape.. click here..
Ha-ha Wall is a type of retaining wall is used to form an invisible barrier. Found on many historic estates, they are a devices designed to avoid obtrusive fencing so when the gentry used to look out to the horizon, they couldn’t see where their land ended and where the countryside began. Furthermore, they keep livestock out of private grounds.

Ha-ha bridge – by Brian Fell / Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK.

Ha-ha landscape provides an interrupted view of the landscape, while also providing a vertical barrier. The idea is to prevent access to a garden by grazing livestock. Before mechanical lawn mowers, a common way to keep large areas of grassland trimmed was to allow livestock, usually sheep, to graze the grass. A ha-ha prevented grazing animals on large estates from gaining access to the lawn and gardens adjoining the house, giving a continuous vista to create the illusion that the garden and landscape were one and undivided.
The name “ha-ha” may derive from the unexpected and amusing moment of discovery when, on approach, the vertical drop suddenly becomes visible.

Ha-ha Bridge over Ha-ha Landscape

In creating the Ha-Ha Bridge for Yorkshire Sculpture Park, sculptor Brian Fell provided an elegant design which also reveals further levels of meaning. By incorporating the word itself into the sides of the bridge he not only refers directly to the ha-ha beneath but also provides an amusing reminder of the original coining of the term derived from the cry of surprise at discovering a boundary.