Liking the Viking
Can’t be too many towns named after a horse – let alone founded by a horse!
(Following on from our last zoo-art entry, this trail-blazing horse deserves a special mention in dispatches.)
As the hoof of Norseman, a handsome steed owned by Laurie Sinclair, raked the earth one day, in 1894, and uncovered a lump of gold.
Alfred Hitchcock’s nephew, Robert Hitchcock has sculpted the mare in mid-strike, standing on the corner of Roberts and Ramsay Streets.
Despite the hare-brained hearsay, Norseman the name has nil to do with landlocked Vikings in the Nullarbor, or Eric the Red seeking an Emu Bitter at the Royal. It all boils down to Mr Sinclair, who dubbed his horse in honour of his own hometown – Norseman – in the Shetland Islands.