A Pachyderm At The Palace

Today after our usual Sunday food shop and customary pint at The Horseshoes we decided to stop off in Maidstone on the way home for a quick stroll along the river and the chance of getting a blip.
The jaunty looking little fella in my image resides outside the Archbishops' Palace on the banks of the River Medway and is part of the Magical Beasts sculpture trail around the town centre. 
There are two elephants on the trail (the other is at a shopping centre on the other side of the river which I have yet to see) and is a reminder perhaps of Gert and Daisy, the two popular elephants that were the star attraction at Maidstone Zoo, owned and operated by Maidstone's 12 times Mayor Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake (which was the subject of one of my blips a couple of years ago). The zoo, which closed in 1959 due to rising costs, once covered more than 12 acres and had 130 enclosures and cages.
The Archbishops' Palace itself dates from 1348 and I was fascinated to find out that it was built in an age when glass was expensive and difficult to produce, and the Archbishops, stopping in Maidstone and at their other palaces, on their journey between Canterbury and London, would carry their own windows with them!
All the sculptures on the trail (including those that I have already captured for blip - Iggy the Iguandon at one of the town's stations and Baby Iggy in Brenchley Gardens) are created and designed by father and son artists, Gary and Thomas Thrussell. I'm already looking forward visiting more of their wonderful creations in future so more sculptural blips are sure to follow!