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The Headington Shark

Revision as of 13:44, 1 August 2017

See the full Unusual building of the week series here.

The Headington Shark is a terraced house located in Headington, Oxford, that features a sculpture of a large shark on the roof.

Officially called Untitled 1986, the shark sculpture is embedded head-first, giving the impression of it having fallen out of the sky.

It was installed by crane to the roof of 2 New High Street on 9th August 1986 by Bill Heine who said that his motive was “…to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation … it is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.”

The shark was designed by sculptor John Buckley and built by a local carpenter friend using painted fibreglass. It weighs 200 kg and measures 7.6 m (25 ft) in length.

Although the police were informed of the installation taking place, they were unable to take action due to there being no law against a homeowner installing a shark sculpture on their own roof.

However, it was the immediate focus of controversy, with local residents complaining and Oxford City Council trying to remove it on safety grounds. When this proved unsuccessful they attempted removal because planning permission had not been given.

As time went on though, it became a minor attraction for Oxford and support from local residents’ began to grow. After six years of legal proceedings, central government became involved, with ministers in the Department of the Environment deciding in 1992 that the shark could remain due to not resulting in ‘harm to the visual amenity’.

In August 2007, the shark was renovated by Buckley, and in 2016, Heine’s son bought the house so as to enable its future preservation.