Angus farm's Royal straw bale tribute
Famous movie dogs have also been painted in honour of Queen Elizabeth II
Last updated 14th Sep 2022
A tribute in honour of Queen Elizabeth II in the form of straw bale art is being displayed in an Angus farm.
The display at the East Skeichen farm includes a recreation of the Queen alongside Paddington Bear and also features famous dogs from film and television.
Creator Fleur Baxter, known as 'balesy' for her work with straw bale art, struggled to settle on an appropriate theme before going down the canine route. She said: "I was actually going to run with Shrek and I'd put pen to paper and drawn to scale Shrek, Donkey and Princess Fiona and then, obviously, there was the terribly sad news of the loss of Queen Elizabeth II.
"I couldn't run a parallel royal family on bales, on straw art, it just wouldn't have been right so I scrapped all of that and had a think about it towards the end of the week. I was chatting to some friends on social media and a good friend actually echoed my thoughts and she said why don't you just run with a canine theme, a doggy theme. The more I thought about it the more I thought, you know, our lovely Queen she loved her dogs, she loved her canines, she loved her Corgis and her working Labradors."
Featured in the tribute are pooches such as Snoopy, Muttley and Dougal. Fleur hopes Her Majesty would have enjoyed the display, saying: "I just wanted a selection of humours, fun, entertaining and smiley canines because I think the Queen would've found that quite amusing. A very, very, very long time ago when I was a teenager I met her at an equine event and her sense of humour was phenomenal."
Passers by are encouraged to get their pictures with the bales but are urged to be careful climbing on the bales which may be unstable.
This edition of Fleur's straw bale art while paying tribute is also raising funds for Cancer Research UK.
