Lovers' Heart

The Lovers' Heart was the most famous rock construction at Rockome Gardens. It appears on many advertisements and literature for the park, sometimes with a model awkwardly holding a felt hat.

The photo from 2000 above shows that extra rock supports were added to the sides of the heart, perhaps after too many visitors leaned on the thin sculpture while posing like the woman on the postcard. Part of the charm of this sculpture is its fragility, despite its heavy rock and concrete materials. In the nearly four decades between the postcard view and photo above, the trees in the background have grown to block the open view of the farm fields surrounding the garden.

The retaining wall behind the heart is decorated with patterns of differently-colored rock. It is not an especially interesting pattern, but seems as if the builders were experimenting with each wall section. Beyond the heart in the postcard view at the top of the page there is a surprising detail among the clusters of rocks:

While most of the concrete walls at Rockome are decorated simply with plain crushed rock, here is a a tiny concrete face with a strange expression. Is this a portrait of someone in particular? Farther down the wall there are several other similar little faces. Another face between these areas has fallen out or been removed, suggesting that the faces and circular rock clusters next to them were cast earlier and embedded in the wall just like the other large stones.