Dorset Martyrs Memorial

In the early 1980s, following funding received from the Art Council's Art for Public Places scheme, the Council of Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, and the Catholic Community in Dorset, commissioned Elisabeth Frink to make a public sculpture for the site. Frink lived in Dorset and was greatly inspired by the Dorset landscape and its history. Having been brought up a Catholic, Frink was familiar with the Roman Catholic Church's history in England during the 16th and 17th centuries, and in particular the executions of Catholic recusants in Dorset at that time. She was also impressed by the political intervention of Catholic priests and nuns in the later 20th century, in…