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A tortoise sculpture gifted to the Princess Royal will take up permanent residence at her gardens in Gatcombe Park once the summer trail is over, it has been revealed.
Princess Anne, who is in her 51st year of patronage of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and paid a flying visit to the island yesterday, had selected a tortoise design in November.
She chose Jersey artist Gabriella Street’s design, named 'Sanctuary'.
During a carefully-choreographed appearance at Gorey Castle, Princess Anne met Gabriella along with Nick Romeril, who designed the surprise hare sculpture, which will be hopping around the island throughout the summer.
Watch: Princess Anne meets Durrell CEO Lesley Dickie, tortoise coordinator Will Bertram, and artists Gabriella Street and Nick Romeril
Ahead of the visit, Lesley Dickie, CEO of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, said: “We're really excited for Her Royal Highness to actually see her tortoise and begin to imagine where she might put the tortoise when it goes to her.
"And also of course, for her to visit the zoo and to see the new tortoise exhibits and to meet our actual giant Aldabra tortoises, I think that will be really fun.
“I'm sure she's going to be really interested and she always takes a really keen interest in what we do.”
She added that the Tortoise Takeover had been very successful so far, with over 10,000 pictures uploaded to the Takeover's app (not counting uploads to other social media).
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Pictured: Gabriella Street's design, "Sanctuary", which will be gifted to Princess Anne at the end of the Tortoise Takeover
Gabriella, the Jersey-born artist behind the design, said: “All the animals and the flora and fauna on there were specifically inspired by all the outposts that she supported around the world.
“And then the colors that I chose was more of like a personal inspiration from her. She has a lot of colorful fashion throughout the years. I also love very colorful fashion and incorporating that into my work, so that was kind of the inspiration.”
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Pictured: Nick Romeril's hare design - which will be part of the auction at the end of the Tortoise Takeover
Nick explained that Durrell had approached him with the idea of the hare, and he had wanted to create a 'natural' design, that reflected a real hare.
Nick added that the hare design had to be created in secret, in his Jersey studio – for Durrell to introduce it after the start of the Tortoise Takeover.
After greeting the two artists along with officials from Jersey Zoo, Princess Anne said hello to some tourists who happened to be outside Gorey Castle. Among them were Mike and Wendy Franklin, on their first visit to Jersey since their honeymoon 54 years ago, and Adrian, Fiona and Ryan Bennett from Kent.
Pictured: Gabriella Street meeting the Princess Royal back in November.
Adrian said they were walking around the castle when they heard that Princess Anne would be arriving. Mr Bennett said she asked them where they were from, adding: “She seemed very nice. She's very interested, interested in Jersey and the people on holiday.”
Princess Anne’s helicopter landed at Grainville School just after 12pm. She headed straight to Government House – conveniently just around the corner – to open the King’s Arch at Government House.
She was then driven to Gorey Castle, where she met the Lieutenant-Governor along with Lesley Dickie, CEO of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.
There, she visited two statues from the Tortoise Takeover: “Sanctuary”, the tortoise she selected and which will be gifted to her later, and ‘Love to Run’, the two-metre hare recently unveiled by Durrell.
Princess Anne then moved on to Jersey Zoo, where she was due to officially open the Aldabran Tortoise House, feed the tortoises, and “walk around”, according to the schedule communicated before the event.
The tunnel, which is normally warm and humid, was made colder to allow cameras to acclimatise more quickly – though this was done slowly, to allow the tortoises to acclimatise, too.
Want to know where to find all the tortoises? Pick up Connect Magazine around the island for your FREE official Tortoise Takeover trail guide or explore the digital edition below...
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