From Fleece to Form: Steve Messam’s Tower on Penistone Hill
Out on the wily, windy moors of Haworth, an extraordinary gallery has sprung up beneath the wide Yorkshire sky. The Wild Uplands Sculpture Trail, set across Penistone Hill Country Park, transforms this rugged landscape into a stage for art inspired by nature and industry. From creative family workshops to summer solstice celebrations, the programme offers something for everyone, yet its heart lies in the site-specific works of four invited artists.
Curated by Shanaz Gulzar, Creative Director of Bradford 2025, Wild Uplands brings together Monira Al Qadiri, Meherunnisa Asad with Studio Lél, Vanessa da Silva and Steve Messam. Each artwork responds to the moors’ sweeping geology and the region’s intertwined stories of labour, craft, and resilience.
Tower, Steve Messam. Wild uplands Sculpture Trail 2025.
Among them, Steve Messam’s Tower commands attention, not only for its height but for the unexpected softness of its surface. Clad entirely in the raw fleece of Derbyshire Gritstone and Lonk sheep from local farms, the sculpture transforms the skyline of Penistone Hill into something at once monumental and tactile.
From a distance, Tower appears like a cairn of quarried stone blocks; up close, its woollen skin invites touch, reminding visitors of the flocks that continue to graze these moors. The stacked forms recall stone once quarried here, stone that built the city itself. In Tower, wool and rock – soft and hard, organic and industrial – combine to tell a story of landscape and legacy.
"Tower" (detail) by Steve Messum. Wild Uplands, 2025.
The choice of fleece is no accident. Messam draws a direct line between the sheep that have physically shaped this rugged upland and the centuries of wool production that built Bradford’s wealth. By wrapping a 10-metre-high tower in wool, he elevates a familiar material into a symbol of both heritage and endurance. Visitors can step beneath the central arch, place their hands on the dense fleece, and feel the fibres that have long bound this landscape to its industrial past.
"Tower" by Steve Messam - detail of the raw fleece of Derbyshire Gritstone and Lonk sheep, all from local farms.
Messam is no stranger to reimagining landscapes. Known internationally for audacious, large-scale installations – from the bright red Paper Bridge built entirely of paper in the Lake District to Hush, which transformed a mining scar in the North Pennines into a rolling saffron-yellow sea – he creates works that are as much about place as they are about spectacle. His practice is grounded in local histories: farming methods, quarrying scars, forgotten architectures. The results are ephemeral but unforgettable, reminding us to look again at the environments we thought we knew.
As Messam reflects, “I’m honoured to be invited to create something ambitious for this year’s programme. As a rurally based artist I’m particularly excited to be working out on the moors in a much wider view of what makes a cultural city.”
Step inside, run your hands over the fleece, or take a moment to watch the sun pass through the arch. Tower anchors the past and present in a single, tactile form.
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Further Information:
Wild Uplands Sculpture Trail is on now at Penistone Hill Country park, Haworth, until 12 October 2025. Find out more using the links below:
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Image Credits:
Lead: Tower, Steve Messam. Wild uplands Sculpture Trail 2025.
All other images as credited in photo captions.