Rooftop stone muses available to view up close

Stone statues normally perched high on the roof of a historic building are available to view up close after being taken down for conservation.

Some of the muses have kept watch from atop the Grade-I listed Clarendon Building in Oxford for more than three centuries but were removed in 2023.

Three of the nine can now be viewed at eye-level in Blackwell Hall at the Weston Library for free, before they are returned to the roof.

They are Clio, the original lead statue representing History; Calliope, a newly cast lead reproduction representing Epic Poetry; and Polyhymnia, the original statue representing Rhetoric.

Three other muses representing Music (Euterpe), Love and Poetry (Erato), and Tragedy (Melpomeni) are currently in storage ahead of their reinstallation, while Comedy (Thalia), Astronomy (Ourania), and Dance (Terpsichore) remain atop the building.

The Clarendon Building was built in the early 18th Century, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, to be the ceremonial entrance into the historic centre of Oxford University.

The one-tonne statues were installed shortly afterwards, built in London and transported to Oxford via barge.

Today, seven of the statues are the originals.

Calliope went missing at some point before 1755 and has been recreated from a drawing, prints, and descriptions. Thalia fell off the roof in the 1930s and smashed into pieces.

The refurbished statues now have stainless steel armatures inside them.

"They've been taken apart and put back together," John Rolfe, an art historian and advisor on the restoration told the BBC.

"The original muses fell off because they had an iron bar inside which rusted, and the muses just collapsed under their own weight... they need to be safe.

"Nobody's ever been injured by a muse as far as I know but we don't want that to be a risk!"

Extra details will be visible during their stay at the Weston Library.

The books Calliope holds have Homer and Virgil on their spines, Thucydides is inscribed on the book Clio holds, and Latin can be seen on Polyhymnia's scroll.

"They're difficult to see up high on the building," Rolfe said.

He called it a "unique, one-off opportunity for visitors to see three of the statues up close and in detail" before they are returned to the roof in September.