8 July 2025

Im not usually a fan of local government commissioned public art, but this one is rather cheery. It was chosen in a competition by the former City of St Kilda in 1993; they asked for something nautical, so the obvious choice was to depict The Lady of St Kilda, the ship that was moored off the beach in 1842 and leant the suburb it’s name. It’s by Alex Nemirovsky, metal enamel, 4m high, partly real partly painted 3D, and there’s mermaids, waves and starfish etc. and it’s the same on both sides of the railway bridge. It was also restored in 2015 by the artist.

My only gripe is that it’s actually in Balaclava. For anyone who doesnt know, there is no saint called Kilda, instead the ship was named after St Kilda, a little bunch of islands way west of the Outer Hebrides, and the origin of that name is lost in the mists of time.

(There was another sculpture of the ship on the beach, a gappy model of the hull as if a shipwreck, created in 2006 as part of the Commonwealth Games. Possibly only intended to be temporary, it was also considered dangerous perhaps because kids were jumping off it).

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