Concrete Cows

Liz Leyh was an "artist-in-residence" in the early days of Milton Keynes and part of her role was to lead community participation in art. The Cows was one of a number of pieces created during her stay. The reality of course was different: Milton Keynes Development Corporation was building "a city in the forest", with substantially more open green space than found in traditional cities. Furthermore, there are real farms with real cows within of the site, and the cows are currently located in a real field. ==Response==

On their original site in a public park, the Cows have been vandalised and modified. Sometimes they have simply been damaged, while at other times they have been painted pink, become zebras, become skeletal, had pyjama bottoms added, have been beheaded, the Cows acquired concrete cow-pats. ==Significance==

In a programme, The Sculpture 100, made for Sky Television in December 2005, the Concrete Cows were included in a list of the 100 most influential works of twentieth-century open-air sculpture in England. ==In popular culture==

The home supporters stand at Milton Keynes Dons F.C. is known as "The Cowshed", while its home stadium was briefly nicknamed 'The Moo Camp' (after FC Barcelona's Nou Camp). The team mascots are two pantomime-style cows named "Donny" and "Mooie". Actor Russell Crowe joked about the cows in 2007 while promoting the movie 3:10 to Yuma. The cows appear in Charles Stross' story The Concrete Jungle, and in Mark Wallington's Destination Lapland, where he marked seeing them as a highlight of his passing visit. ==Location==

The Cows were made at Stacey Hill Farm, now the site of the Milton Keynes Museum. In spring 2016 they were moved to MK Museum which is where they originally started out as a temporary exhibit. However the replicas (made by Bill Billings) in Bancroft are perhaps better known and are sited next to the A422 (Monks Way) between V5 Great Monks St. and V6 Grafton St.) where it passes under the West Coast Main Line, near its junction with the A5. Direct access on foot or by bike is possible by redway. The nearest rail stations for Bancroft or the MK Museum are Milton Keynes Central and Wolverton. Buses for Bancroft include Arriva buses 5 and 6 between Bletchley, Central Milton Keynes and Wolverton which call at near-by bus stops on each side of Monks Way near the junction with H3's northern carriageway and Octavian Drive. If approaching on foot or by bike from these stops, a stream separates the cows from the eastern (Octavian Rd) side of H3. There is a bridge over the stream next to the southern carriageway of H3, and an underpass links this bridge to the cows' field. ==See also==