I don’t know who Erroll Bottrell is, but he has carved his name into eternity… on the base of a statue in Sydney’s Centennial Park.

This statue though is a rather odd kind of ornament all up. It sits on top of what might be a ten metre high pseudo classic Greek column, making it rather difficult to see. This object is located near the Busby pond in the park, but bears no inscription as to its purpose or origin.

It is one of several similar such structures in the same area of the park, and I suspect they may be Australian variations of the classic English landscape folly, which is “an architectural construction which isn’t what it appears to be.”

Quite eccentric, what? Perhaps our Erroll Bottrell designed these tributes, and inscribed his name into the base for posterity’s sake. Maybe he was just another visitor to the park, who was handy with a carving chisel, which he just happened to be carrying at the time.

Update: I’ve posted a few more photos of these statues on my Flickr page.