Neptune and the Serpent Statue, Lowestoft Seafront

On the Royal Plain seafront in Lowestoft stands a striking bronze statue of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, locked in combat with a large serpent coiled around his body. Trident raised and muscles straining, the figure looks out towards the North Sea, an apt subject for a town that has depended on fishing and shipbuilding for centuries. It sits close to the South Pier and the harbour entrance, a short walk from the town's Victorian seafront gardens and South Beach.

The sculpture is not a Victorian original but a much-travelled 20th-century cast. It was produced in the workshops of the Chiurazzi foundry in Naples, which specialised in bronzes reproduced from classical models, and was acquired by a private collector before eventually being gifted to Lowestoft. The statue was installed on the seafront in the early 2000s as part of the regeneration of the Royal Plain area, giving the town a maritime landmark to match its position as the most easterly settlement in the British Isles.

A quirky detail: the pose is derived from a much older Italian tradition of Neptune-and-sea-monster garden statuary, and near-identical Chiurazzi Neptunes can be found on private estates and public squares from Naples to the United States. Lowestoft's version is one of the few standing on a working English seafront, with fishing trawlers and offshore wind service vessels passing within sight. It makes an easy stop on a walk between the harbour, the Claremont Pier and the East Point Pavilion.