Beneath The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Fashioned from driftwood, barbed wire, sea urchins and barnacle-encrusted plastic mannequins, Earl Granville’s eclectic sculptures are inspired by the Hebridean island of North Uist’s wild weather and terrain, discovers David Profumo

- David Profumo

Its a dreich October morning on the east coast of the island, the Hebridean sea temperature is 13ËšC and a man of 60 clad in a wetsuit is cutting loose some female busts he’s tethered underwater for two years. They’re constellated in barnacles and covered in grape-like ascidians (sea squirts) and he grimaces with cold and triumph, for these mannequins are destined for his studio—meet Fergus, 6th Earl Granville, laird of North Uist, godson of The Queen, who’s rapidly becoming a sculptor of rising repute.

Since I first met him 30 years ago— a tousle-headed youth with a wolfish grin, power-smoking over a Diet Coke in the local bar—Fergus and I have spent many days together, mostly fishing. I have come to know his mischievous humour, his lifelong passion for beachcombing, his deep familiarity with the natural history and archaeology of the island and even a little about his hellraising youth. However, it wasn’t until 2018, on a chance visit to his unusual home (a doughnut-shaped shoreline fastness designed in the 1960s by Sir Martyn Beckett) that I had the first inkling of the amphibious Earl’s talent for sculpture. It was like learning that Prince Hal had developed a penchant for petit point.