First statue of a non-royal woman planned for town

A life-sized statue of writer Sylvia Townsend Warner sitting on a bench is being proposed for Dorchester's main shopping street.
Planning permission is being sought for the installation outside Gould's department store in South Street.
The writer and poet lived in Dorset with her partner, poet Valentine Ackland, at a time when same-sex relationships defied societal expectations.
If approved, the bronze sculpture will be the first of a non-royal woman in the county town.
The application by Dorchester Civic Society includes an information board.
A cat at the statue's feet will be modelled on Dorchester's famous Susie the cat.
Susie achieved local celebrity status after appearing in more than 30 different shops across the town.
The writer was chosen by a public poll on notable women from the area who have been overlooked by history.

In its planning application to Dorset Council, the society said: "Sylvia Townsend Warner was a prolific writer and poet whose career spanned six decades, producing some of the most varied, witty and revolutionary work of her time.
"Yet, despite her remarkable contributions, her name is rarely mentioned and remains absent from Dorset's literary landscape.
"Sylvia was a highly individual writer of novels, short stories and poems, and a contemporary of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes."
The society say her statue will be the town's first non-royal statue of a woman, joining its existing six statues of men.
It will be sculpted by Denise Dutton, who created the Mary Anning statue in Lyme Regis.
Public comments on the proposal remain open until 4 April.
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