#DoTheAethel

Aethelflaed continues to inspire art and creativity

A social media campaign encouraging people to #DotheAethel has gone up a level after being joined by actors from TV’s The Last Kingdom, who struck the pose in front of our Aethelflaed statue itself.
The celebrity guests posed for #DotheAethel last Tuesday during their visit to Tamworth to mark the 1100th anniversary of the death of one of the most influential people in the town’s history.

More than a year of consultations, designing, planning and back-breaking labour will come to an end this week when Tamworth’s brand new warrior queen sculpture finally returns home to be revealed to the public for the first time.
Although pictures shared throughout the design process have provided glimpses of the huge sculpture of Tamworth’s Lady of the Mercians, Aethelflaed, only a couple of people have seen the six-metre tall steel figure put together in its entirety – and the overall effect promises to be ‘surprising and unique’.

Stunning pictures reveal the moment when Tamworth’s new warrior queen sculpture was dipped into a huge bath of molten zinc, to slowly emerge shiny and victorious, ready for the final stage of the design process.

A social media campaign encouraging people to #DotheAethel is gathering pace, attracting its first celebrity, an award-winning author and reaching across the world as we prepare to welcome our brand new Aethelflaed statue home to Tamworth next week.
Celebrity TV chef Rosemary Shrager joined the fun by taking a break from a busy day at the Ely Food and Drink Festival to #DotheAethel, making her the first celebrity to get involved in the campaign to raise awareness of the Anglo-Saxon warrior queen who died in Tamworth 1,100 years ago this June.

Tamworth is going all out to celebrate the life of one of the most powerful and influential women in Anglo-Saxon England – and we will taking advantage of this year’s Staffordshire Day celebrations to spread the word even further.

The now annual Staffordshire Day event aims to raise the profile of the county and tell the world what a wonderful place Staffordshire is to live, work and visit. Usually held only on May 1st, this year’s celebrations have been extended to cover a week of events from April 29 to May 6.

Thousands of people joined together in Tamworth to help launch a new campaign to celebrate and raise awareness of one of the most powerful and influential women in Anglo-Saxon England.
Crowds took part in a mass ‘#DotheAethel’ in honour of Tamworth’s Lady of the Mercians and warrior queen Aethelflaed, who took her last breath in Tamworth 1,100 years ago this year.