(c.1488—1561 )
It’s both exhilarating and terrifying when I stumble across a statue not on my list. Today is one of those days and whilst there I vaguely recall a friend at the start of my journey telling me there was one of Mother Shipton in Knaresborough which I flatly refused to believe at the time. Sorry Nic.
Ursula was a soothsayer and prophet. Believed to have been the child of an unmarried young teenager, she was born and raised in a cave in the woods for the first few years of her life before the abbot of Beverley intervened and sent her mother to a convent, while Ursula went to live with a local family. As the story goes, she had a crooked back and needed to use a stick, her nose was hooked and she had a very prominent chin. Typical that the woman was judged on her looks eh? Still, as a result, she kept mostly her own company and spent time alone learning about plants and their healing properties. She married a carpenter called Tom Shipton in 1512 but when he died 9 years later she moved back to the woods. Locals would go to her for spells, potions and remedies.
In later life, she claimed she could see the future and began to make prophesies such as the invention of iron ships, the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Whether she saw her own death coming at the age of 73 is anyone’s guess.
Funds for the statue were raised through public donations, with the sculptor giving her a younger more sympathetic appearance than the one she is often portrayed as in her later years.
Concerned I somehow missed Ursula off my original list, I go back to my source of the Public Statues and Sculptures Association website which originally listed 128 women statues. It has now been increased to 144, with Ursula sneaking in there. Damn you feminism.
WomenstatuesUK 