PLANNING APPLICATION FOR MULTI MILLION POUND SCULPTURE AND VISITOR CENTRE SUBMITTED

A planning application for the Multi Million pound Star of Caledonia which will be located close to the A74(M) at Gretna Green was submitted to Dumfries and galloway council on the 18thof February 2025.

The team behind the giant artwork that will sit in a field to the Northwest of The Headless Cross adjacent To B7076 at Gretna Green,  say it will act as a metaphor for the dynamism of the Scottish nation symbolising the energy and power of Scottish invention and will be a welcome to Scotland.

The Star of Caledonia will be taller than the Angel of the North and is set to provide a huge economic boost for the south of Scotland, attracting around 500,000 tourists each year.

It is hoped that the star will be as big an attraction for the region and Scotland as the Kelpies near Falkirk.

It’s story began in 2001.  Alasdair Houston (1962-2021), farmer and owner of a tourism/hospitality business at Gretna Green, had the idea of creating a border landmark to as a cultural catalyst for regeneration to help Dumfries and Galloway recover from the impact of foot and mouth. Alasdair led the project with his innate enthusiasm until his untimely death in 2021.  His wife, Lucy Houston is now Chair of Star of Caledonia Trust, has a singular focus to see vision transformed into reality.

Although the design of the massive structure is not popular with everyone , the inspiration for the design is described ” The concept for the Star began with the border drawn as a dashed line. In between the gaps the journeys are marked as a series of waves flowing in and out. They are different in amplitudes and frequencies.  This scenario of multiple waves offers a field of energy. Patterns emerge when you zoom in on the waves, including the image of the Saltire. As my metaphor for energy evolved, I focused on the curves folding over each other as representation for Scottish brainpower.

I ran curves along the surface of a virtual sphere and instinctively intercepting and crossing them with rods. These slow the eye as it travels the curves. The rods and curves act as one art piece with two aspects contingent on one another.

Scotland has produced many of the scientists who defined today’s technological world. Telephones, steam engines, TV, logarithms, penicillin, the list is long. Looming large in this pantheon was James Clerk Maxwell, who lived and worked in the region, and his discovery of electromagnetism, essential to our descriptions of energy.

Electromagnetism is one concept in juxtaposed phases: electricity and magnetism. Each is a field of force acting independently to the other at right angles but combining as one effect. The Star’s geometry does just that, adopting a mathematical formulation in the spirit of science and Maxwell. It is defined by three functions, each a progression along the three axes of Cartesian space. The functions are matched against a variable T for time run.

The rods converge vertically at the heart of the top plateau. As a visitor approaches the centre and looks up, the rods point towards them. What may have seemed a random positioning suddenly lines up. The Star becomes unique to the viewer and its energies become one with the visitor. “

The Star of Caledonia Trust are hoping that construction of the £11 million pound project will be completed by early 2027 and the site will open to the public in the spring that year, 25 years after the concept was born.

The new plans include a state-of-the-art visitor centre that will showcase the Star and act as a gateway to promote tourist trails across Dumfries & Galloway and the Borders.

The centre will highlight local attractions such as the Robert Burns House in Dumfries, The Devil’s Porridge Museum in Eastriggs and Kirkcudbright Dark Space Planetarium, as well as others further along the border including Hadrian’s Wall.

For more information, and details of how this project is funded click HERE