The iconic Wicker Spitfire on the Oakham bypass is to be rebuilt for the fourth time
since it was installed on the grassy bank near Uppingham Road for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the imminent closure at the time of RAF Cottesmore. It's exposed to wind, road spray and winter salts and as a result the willow weakens and needs rebuilding. It will disappear on Monday and returned less than a fortnight later. Regular teak oil treatments will begin early next year to further preserve the structure. It's being restored by Rutland Willows and the son-in-law of the original creator, John Shone, Martin Keeley.
‘It's mainly a willow object, there is metal underneath it for the main parts, but the majority of the thing is it willow. So therefore that's just a wood and a wood that's outside will rot. And so if it's battered where it particularly is with the wind, 'cause it's high up so that people can see it and then you've got the high sided vehicles that go down there. I mean, it's on the bypass. It was one of the first things that were put on the bypass when it was opened. So now there is steam where all those new vehicles were going past. It gets battered like you say, the salt from the spray. So that attacks the wood a lot more than it would normally do. So it was put up in 2010 and then in 2014 the outside deteriorated quite a bit. So we decided that we would redo it again. So it was done in 2014 and then we thought that will preserve it a little bit. So we started treating it with some teak oil, but then that sort of lapsed and so it needed another re-weaving in 2019. So we re-wove it or I re-wove it in 2019, And again we set up a maintenance contract, but again that lapsed after about three years. So this time we're going to redo it and we've got this almost in perpetuity sort of maintenance contract’.
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