Local man unveils Coventry coat of arms made from 6,000 pieces of muddy pottery

[dutchman]

Months of work and searching city rivers has gone into stunning work of art



A local history lover has unveiled a stunning work of art depicting a redesign of Coventry coat of arms - made up entirely from thousands bits of broken pottery found mudlarking. The painstaking effort has taken Scott Duffin months scouring for the required parts.

For the uninitiated, mudlarking is the practice of hunting for historic items washed up in the mud of river banks. Scott, a local author and lover of all things old, has been a practitioner of the muddy past-time for several years, finding all manner of historical treasures along the way.

"I like to find stuff in the rivers mudlarking," he told CoventryLive. "I find a lot of broken antique pottery pieces and make mosaics all about Coventry with them. This is a recent re-design of the city’s coat of arms. I named it ‘Coventry World'.

"My head works In funny ways - I was finding all of these shards and broken pieces and I just knew I could make something with what I was finding.

"It’s all broken pieces that would need clearing away anyway so I thought it was best to reuse them. All the items would’ve once been used by the people of Coventry.

"There’s no modern public art available, not to any great standard that’s going to last a long time so I thought I’d make it. I’ve made others before too and I’m currently working on more pieces."

Scott has been mudlarking around Coventry for a couple of years and using his finds to make mosaics for around a year. Coventry World, six ft by four ft took him five months and 6,000 pieces to make.

"The works grow as I find new stuff," Scott said, talking about his process. "Most importantly it's about getting the colours how I want them."

Asked about his most interesting finds he added: "I find a lot so it’s hard to say, I get particularly excited if the item says Coventry on it - or if it has an elephant."

Scott's love of the symbolic Coventry elephant runs deep. In 2023 he released Elephants of Coventry, a book with author Adam Wood. The book provides 'a visual history of the city' and documents over 300 models or representations of one of the city's most famous mascots.

Away from mudlarking, Scott is an avid collector of historic items and believes he has the largest private collection of artefacts relating to Coventry. However, he has ambitions to one day be able to open this private collection to the public. He's already had some practice, displaying some of his items, including 'Coventry World' at Heritage Open Days at venues in the city.