May 2025 saw a big community-led art project come to Keighley. The all new Rombald’s Rocks: Keighley Sculpture Trail involved 100s of local people and took its inspiration from local legend, Rombald the Giant.
How Rombald’s Rocks was born?
The brainchild of local artist, Leonie Briggs, this project was designed to demonstrate the creativity of the local community, bringing something positive to the town and highlighting the area’s rich folklore.
Leonie and Keighley Creative were funded by Bradford 2025’s Creative Communities Fund and Keighley BID to deliver this community-led project and encourage Keighley to get creative.
To find out more about Leonie and the development of her idea, please visit here.
Commissioning local artists
It was important that the Rombald’s Rocks project offered paid opportunities to local artists and showcase the local talent that we have on our doorsteps.
We received over 20 applications for the commissions and the 5 artists were selected by a panel of volunteers that represented the Keighley community. The artists chosen for the commission were:
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
To find out more about the chosen artists, you can read more here.
Encouraging creativity from community groups
As a community-led project it was essential that we included people from different groups around the town that represented the breadth of diversity amongst the residents.
Therefore we worked with local community centres to deliver workshops to their service users, welcoming local people to decorate one of the Rombald’s Rocks sculptures. The community groups that took part were:
To find out more about the community groups that were involved and their sculptures, please visit here.
Inviting everyone to get involved
As well as workshops for specified community groups, we ran a series of public access workshops in the lead up to the launch event. These workshops encouraged local people to get involved on a drop-in basis so they could add their own unique piece of artwork to the Rombald’s Rocks project.
These were free, family-friendly and welcomed all ages and abilities. People could come along and make clay models or cup and ring stone inspired artworks. The workshops were held at Keighley Market and in the Airedale Shopping Centre.
To find out more about the free workshops we put on, please visit here.
Artists in the community
In order to facilitate the community group workshops and the public workshops, we needed a strong team of skilled practitioners that could inspire and guide attendees to get creative and engage with the Rombald’s Rocks project. The creative facilitators that ran all the workshops were:
For more information about the creative practitioners we employed, please visit here.
We couldn’t have done it without our amazing volunteers
As a charity, we rely heavily on support from lots of local people who are passionate about the arts and Keighley and its people. Volunteers were crucial to ensuring the smooth running of many of the Rombald’s Rocks activities and events, particularly the launch event.
To find out more about volunteering for Keighley Creative, please contact us by emailing admin@keighleycreative.org.
Supporting Keighley’s business community
Leonie and the team recognise the benefits that community art and creative events can bring to urban areas. We wanted to try and encourage visitors to the sculpture trail to explore the town and increase footfall for local businesses and we needed interesting and diverse locations to host our Rombald’s Rocks sculptures. Keighley BID were also keen to get involved as they recognised how the collaboration could be of benefit to both parties.
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
To find out more about the businesses that supported the event and the locations that were included in the Keighley Sculpture Trail, please visit here.
Discovering the Keighley Sculpture Trail
But how did you find all the Rombald’s Rocks? The map was the key to guiding people around the trail and we wanted to clearly promote the project and the launch day.
We called out for graphic designers to apply to create the map for Rombald’s Rocks and after lots of amazing applications, Adam Higton was selected to create the artwork. Adam’s unique design alongside lead artist Leonie Briggs’ illustrations, gave an exciting and interesting look to the project and created user-friendly assets for the trail.
Ensuring everyone could contribute
A key aspect of the project was to encourage as many people as possible to get involved and contribute even in small and easy ways. Therefore we launched a colouring competition open to anyone that was accessible for those with the most limited resources or that could only access Rombald’s Rocks remotely.
For more information about the Rombald’s Rocks colouring competition, please visit here.
The launch of the Keighley Sculpture Trail
The Rombald’s Rocks project was unveiled on Saturday 24th May 2025 with 11 unique sculptures appearing around Keighley town centre.
The trail was opened by Council Leader, Susan Hinchcliffe and attended by Robbie Moore MP and other notable people representing Keighley.
Lots of activities and performances were put on around town to create a special event that welcomed everyone from the local community. As well as the clay modelling workshops, performances were given by local actors, musicians and singers and local businesses got involved by hosting some of the sculptures and putting on special offers to celebrate the event.
Photos: Bob Smith Photography
To find out more about the launch of Rombald’s Rocks, please visit here.
10 unique Rombald’s Rocks were created
These unique sculptures were made and decorated by the people of Keighley. They showcase so many different styles and mediums, each one being a special representation of the people that made it or inspired by important Keighley landmarks. All of them with their own characters and names.
Photo: John Bell
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
Photo: John Bell
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
Photo: John Bell
Photo: John Bell
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
Photo: Bob Smith Photography
If you would still like to find out about each sculpture, who made it and what was the inspiration, please click here.
Showcasing the project with an exhibition
“The Making of Rombald’s Rocks” exhibition developed as an idea when we started getting asked questions like: Who is behind the project? How were the sculptures made? and How have you involved the community?
To find out more about the exhibition, please visit here.
A sneaky peek for everyone who made it happen
As the project progressed, more and more people were brought in to help engagement with the Rombald’s Rocks project. These people included creative facilitators, community leaders, business owners, artists, photographers, town officials and many more.
So the team decided to celebrate all those people with an exclusive preview event for all involved. Leonie and Cat Murray, Events & Operations Manager at Keighley Creative, had the opportunity to talk about the project and for visitors to have a preview of all the sculptures and the exhibition.
Photos: John Bell
A huge thank you to the supporters of Rombald’s Rocks
Keighley Creative would like to thank the supporters and funders of the Rombald’s Rocks: Keighley Sculpture Trail project as follows:
GiveBradford is an independent grant maker and is the place for giving in Bradford and they’re building a movement. Working collaboratively with leaders, community organisations and donors, they’re strengthening the future of local communities, building a fairer Bradford for everyone.
Pears Foundation is a family foundation driven by a desire to demonstrate the good that philanthropy can achieve in the world. The Pears family has given more than £450m to charity since the Foundation was established.
Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture (Bradford 2025) runs from January 2025 to December 2025 and is a celebration of Bradford city and district, taking place across its city, towns, villages and greenspaces. It will showcase the rich history of the area and spotlight its dynamic contemporary culture in all forms; dance and theatre, music and film, visual arts and crafts, food and sport. The City of Culture designation has already brought significant investment to the region and been a catalyst for development. It is set to have a lifelong impact through its reshaping of the local curriculum, skills and training programmes, investment in existing and new creative spaces, and open up opportunities for cultural participation.
Keighley Business Improvement District (BID) is a public-private partnership in which businesses within a defined area of the town pay a levy to fund improvements in that area, for example improving security or cleaning.
Keighley Towns Fund has been allocated £20m funding over the next 10 years. The investment is overseen by the Towns Fund Board which is made up of representatives from Keighley. The long-term plan for the Towns Fund is to improve aspects such as security and aid regeneration of the high street.
