Bacchus returns to Painshill after a Grand Tour

The statue of Bacchus at Painshill Park. Photograph by Andy Newbold, 2008. The statue of Bacchus, god of wine, has returned to Painshill Park after a 200-year Grand Tour of his own. The statue, once believed lost, was tracked down by researchers working on the restoration of the 18th-century landscape park in Cobham, Surrey.

Painshill's creator, Charles Hamilton, bought the 7-foot statue in Rome in 1727, while on the Grand Tour of Europe, and housed it in its own temple at Painshill Park.

The statue was sold in 1797 to William Beckford of Fonthill in Wiltshire. Researchers traced it next to Hafod in west Wales, and then to Ashridge in Hertfordshire. Its final stop was Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge, where the Painshill team found it in 2001.

A cast has been made of the original statue, now in the protection of the National Trust. It will be returned to the Temple of Bacchus when the building is restored.

To find out more about Bacchus and the restoration of Painshill Park, visit the Painshill Park web site .