Where on Earth is the Twelve Foot Tall Mr. Darcy Statue?

Have you ever watched the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? I haven't. But if you have, you most likely remember the scene where Mr. Darcy takes a nice swim in a lake, and then tries to scamper back to his rooms in, gasp, just his underclothes. How scandalous. Here's the clip in question:

This scene was rated one of the most memorable British TV drama moments of all time. And what happens when media is this beloved? A twelve foot tall statue commemorating the scene is commissioned, of course!

No, I'm not joking. In 2013, UKTV's new (at the time) TV channel Drama wanted to drum up some noise for its debut, and to do so, it chose to hire three sculptors to model Mr. Darcy in Colin Firth's famous lake scene. It took them more than two months to create. The statue is made of polystyrene and fiberglass and is as tall as a double decker bus. It only includes his head and torso, as his "legs" need to affix him to the floor of whichever body of water he is in. He is giant and glorious.

There's just one small problem. After the statue was created, it was installed in several areas in the UK before being bought by the National Trust of Australia and shipped across the high seas. Its location is easily traceable from its conception in April 2013 until September 2014, when all media coverage of the statue immediately halted. This is most likely attributed to the fact that the statue was no longer being exhibited publicly, due to a lack of events that would want an incredibly large statue of Mr. Darcy. (I did find an article where someone from the National Trust hinted at wanting to display the statue at the 2015 Jane Austen Festival in Canberra, Australia, but I couldn't find any proof that the statue had indeed been displayed at the festival.)

So where on Earth is the twelve foot tall Mr. Darcy statue? This is a question that has been haunting me for a couple months now, and as any normal person would, I have spent hours digging through news articles and videos in order to compile a timeline of the statue's creation and public displays. This timeline is most likely incomplete, so I'll do my best to update it with any new findings.

Enjoy!

April - May 2013: Adrian Willis, general manager of the UKTV channel Drama commissions the statue. Here is a picture of Willis dressed up as Mr. Darcy, posing next to the completed and installed twelve foot tall Mr. Darcy statue.

8 July 2013: The UKTV channel Drama launches. And on the same day...

8 July 2013: The Mr. Darcy statue debuts in Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. Here's a video of the statue being installed:

18th July 2013: Mr. Darcy goes to Scarborough Beach in North Yorkshire.

July 2013: Mr. Darcy is shipped over to Lyme Park, which is in Disley, Cheshire. Scenes at Mr. Darcy's Pemberley home in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice were filmed here.

February 2014: Apparently, Mr. Darcy was only supposed to stay in Lyme Park until this date, where it was planned to be placed on eBay to be auctioned away. Any one of us (with enough disposable income and wisdom) could have theoretically owned this statue. Instead, fate took Mr. Darcy in another direction. The National Trust in Australia, a charity that devotes itself to conserving places and objects of historical value, acquired the statue and were desperately looking for any company willing to extract the statue from Lyme Park and ship him over to Australia.

18-19 March 2014: Mr. Darcy is removed from Lyme Park by Kinder and Glossop Mountain Rescue Teams and Cheshire Search and Rescue. I cannot stress enough, these are companies who normally rescue people from extreme weather conditions or people who find themselves in over their heads on mountain hikes. A spokesperson for Peak District Mountain Rescue said, "Admittedly, Mr. Darcy was slightly bigger than the normal bodies we're used to handling." One of Mr. Darcy's fingers also fell off in the rescue process. He persists, albeit nine fingered.

23 March 2014: The National Trust are trying their best to arrange for a company to ship poor Mr. Darcy over to Australia.

6 May 2014: Success! Mr. Darcy is officially on his way to Melbourne.

28 July 2014: Mr. Darcy is displayed at Docklands, Victoria as part of the National Trust's "Love, Desire, and Riches" exhibition. This exhibit showed wedding dresses and accessories from history and popular media, spanning from the 18th to the 21st century. He was placed in Berth 8, near the Cow up a Tree sculpture.

3 August 2014: Mr. Darcy is scheduled to be packed up to be shipped to the Rippon Lea Estate for further display.

11 August 2014 - 30 September 2014: Mr. Darcy is displayed at Rippon Lea Estate in Elsternwick, Australia. The "Love, Desire, and Riches" exhibition ends on September 30th.

Here is where Mr. Darcy's obvious paper trail ends. There is some hope, however. On August 6, 2014, the Herald Sun reported that Mr. Darcy "has no plans to leave the lake unless requested for event use by someone else". For all we know, Mr. Darcy is living the rest of his days happily submerged in the Rippon Lea Estate. However, I can't find any blogs, tweets, or posts about seeing Mr. Darcy at Rippon Lea after 2014. The closest hint we have to his location is from the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which stated in its October 2022 itinerary that the Rippon Lea estate was "for a while the home to... Mr. Darcy - at least in the form of a hideous 3m tall statue of Colin Firth...". It's something.

With every day that passes, it seems more and more like he will have to live on in our dreams. But maybe that's for the best. With something like a twelve foot tall polystyrene statue of Mr. Darcy, his physical presence isn't necessary for the hilarity of the situation to persist. But it sure would be nice to know how he's doing.

5/5/2025 update!

So I believe that I may have an update in this mystery! I was thinking about the Mr. Darcy statute again and scrolling through the Google Maps 360 views in hopes of seeing him. In this one, taken in July 2024 by Shmuel, I think you can see the place where the statute had been installed but has perhaps since been removed.

The trees behind Mr. Darcy are best seen in the top right image. Behind Mr. Darcy, from left to right, is a low hanging tree with very thin and spindly branches, three or four larger, tall stretching trees, and a cluster of shorter palm trees. You can see these trees best in the top right image, but the palm trees can also be seen in the bottom right image taken by Fabric Tragic. In the bottom right image you can also see a spiky bush and coniferous tree of some sort hanging above it.

In the Google Maps image, you can see a spindly, low hanging tree to the left, next to three taller trees with broader trunks. The palm trees are hard to spot, but they're behind the bush in the foreground. I believe that this image captures the spot where Mr. Darcy was installed, and if so, he is no longer in that spot as of July 2024. The spiky bush and the branches hanging above the Google Maps image are likely the same as the bush and tree seen to the left of the bottom right image.

This isn't definitive evidence, but I'll be sure to do some more digging to see if I can confirm if he really has been moved from Rippon Lea!!

(By the way, since writing this post, I've watched Pride and Prejudice 1995 twice and it's honestly so good. The historical costuming and acting and depiction of the time period are all so great! Highly recommend.)