A marble monument put in place at an Aberdeen bay to honour a community’s rich fishing heritage has been vandalised – after just one day.
The two-and-a-half tonne rock at Cove Harbour was erected on Tuesday morning by Brazilian sculptor Albertino Costa.
Mr Costa has been commissioned by Cove in Bloom to carve the stone into a sculpture to commemorate the life of Isie Caie, the last traditional fishwife of Cove.
But after just 24 hours at the site, vandals have already knocked over the enormous block of Italian marble.
It has since been lifted upright again, however Mr Costa said he is disappointed his project is already facing problems.
Mr Costa – who plans to get the community involved in creating the monument over the next year – said: “I got a call telling us that the stone had been tipped over.
“It must have been deliberate, I don’t think it could have been the wind or anything. There must have been at least three people to push this over, I don’t think it was an accident.
“It’s really a shame that this happened, I think it was probably just some kids that came down and knocked it over.
“It’s just lucky that it didn’t crack or break, so at least we can continue with completing the project.”
Wendy Suttar, of Cove in Bloom, said: “There’s no question that this was done intentionally.
“We’ve decided to keep it down at the harbour for the time being, as we really want it to remain in a public space so that
people in the community will still feel like they can come along and help Albertino on the project whenever they want.
“But if something happens again, we might have to have a bit of a re-think.
“We hope people in the community will still be willing to take part in this project and help make our sculpture a reality.”
