UK drivers stop to photograph eight-metre statue of nude man

The 8,000-kilogram artwork on the road between London to Lowestoft was unveiled in November

'The Yoxman' by artist Laurence Edwards beside the A12 road in Yoxford, Suffolk. PA

An eight metre-tall bronze sculpture of a naked man built near a busy road has attracted the attention of drivers.

The 8,000-kilogram artwork, called The Yoxman, was commissioned by a tourism company and installed in the grounds of the 16th century Cockfield Hall in Yoxford, Suffolk.

The statue, dubbed the Suffolk Colossus, is visible from the A12, which stretches from London to Lowestoft in Suffolk.

“I think it’s great," said Russell Pearce, chairman of Yoxford Parish Council. “There’s a lay-by beside it and people do stop and take photographs of it.

“They pull into the lay-by, stop, take photographs and drive on. You can see it as you drive past.

“I suppose if somebody had never seen it before perhaps it could be distracting, but I don’t see it as a problem, personally. I’ve not witnessed any issues.”

Mr Pearce said there had been “a lot of good feedback in the village”.

“A few people don’t like it, but then you’re not going to please everybody,” he said.

When the statue was unveiled in November, sculptor Laurence Edwards, who lives in the village, said: “Yoxman is a beacon of local identity and a frame of reference for an evolving relationship with the landscape.

“He’s kind of like a revenant, a visitor from the past who's come back, musing on an unrecognisable environment and contemplating its future.

“The sculpture also marks a transforming moment on the River Yox’s journey through the lowlands of East Suffolk, before it flows – as the Minsmere – out into the North Sea.”

The Yoxman was created at Edwards’s nearby studio and foundry in Halesworth.