Gulliver Play Sculpture
The Craigmillar Festival Society commissioned artist Jimmy Boyle to design the Gulliver Play Statue while he was serving a life sentence for murder at Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison.
Boyle was an inmate in the Prison’s Special Unit, a ground-breaking pilot prison reform scheme that focused on counselling and art therapy.
The 100-foot concrete statue Boyle designed was based on Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels and built entirely by local people. It was unveiled by Billy Connolly in 1976.
The giant’s huge body contained tunnels and hideaways that encouraged people to explore and climb on its form, and it became a well-loved space for both art and play within the area.
It is still widely remembered throughout Craigmillar as the ‘Gentle Giant that shares and cares’ and for its resonating metaphor of the power of art, care and community action.
In 2011, despite a campaign by members of the Craigmillar community advocating for its conservation, the site was deemed structurally unsound and was removed in favour of new flood defence schemes.
What little remains of what was once the largest sculpture in Europe – a single foot – is currently in the process of becoming a scheduled monument as of 2023.
Watch archival footage of play on the Gulliver Sculpture (JOB CREATION IN CRAIGMILLAR, 1978 - Craigmillar Festival Society)