I walked round the corner and there was a lion!
It's an art exibition called the Pride of Northampton
For a 10 week period in Summer 2010, Northampton’s streets, parks, open spaces and shopping centres will be joined by a pride of 5ft lions. Pride of Northampton will be the town’s most high profile event, engaging local artists, community groups and schools and attracting regional and national visitors to the town centre. A significant amount of money raised through the auction of the lions in September 2010 will be donated to the Born Free Foundation and to a local Northampton charity, the Cynthia Spencer Hospice. Each member of the 40 strong Pride has been brought to life by a local or specially selected artist. Our team of dedicated artists has done a wonderful job in giving each lion a unique and beautiful look. Schools across Northamptonshire have also painted and decorated Mini Lions, and these will also be on display.
I know they have recently had elephants on the streets of London (kathyh posted some great pics of these) and we saw cows in Edinburgh a few years ago, and looking on the website there have been several similar animal invasions in other parts of the country. I think it's great, and will be taking the girls into town over the summer to see how many we can find (I've got my map downloaded), as well as into some of the local parks where others are hiding.
This one was obviously more dangerous than the rest and had to be caged in.
They've put lots of lion paw prints on the streets, going up flights of stairs and right through one of the indoor shopping centres.
Lots of little lions, decorated by one of the local primary schools.
And three lions about which least said, soonest mended, I think.
I took photos of a few more of the lions, and these and the ones above can be seen in a scrapbook gallery should anyone wish to take a look - Lions in Northampton