A colourful new trail has unleashed 45 giant rat sculptures across Hull and East Yorkshire – and all inspired by a home-grown music legend.
Launched this month and running until 30 August 2025, A Mischief of Rats trail of 6ft artist decorated sculptures pays tribute to Hull musician Mick Ronson, ahead of the 80th anniversary of his birth next year.
Best known as the guitarist with David Bowie’s ‘Spiders from Mars’, he first joined hometown band ‘The Rats’ and the new trail takes its inspiration from the Hull outfit, which was prominent on the local music scene and beyond in the late 60s and early 70s.
Following on from previous popular sculpture trails Larkin with Toads, A Moth for Amy and Puffins Galore, this latest initiative aims to make 2025 the Year of the Rat in the region, with a local charity set to benefit from funds raised.
Both Ronson and fellow bandmate, bassist Trevor Bolder, died of cancer, and the trail’s chosen charity is Daisy Appeal, which provides life-saving technology to support people living with cancer, heart disease and dementia. All the sculptures will be auctioned off at an event on 20 September, with funds going to the charity.
Before then, visitors are being encouraged to turn Pied Piper and discover all 45 of the artworks, which have been installed in the city of Hull and across East Yorkshire. A free to download App, plus a printed guide, provides clues to find the rats.
Artists were asked to base their sculptures on several themes, including Mick Ronson, his band along with the music scene in Hull and East Yorkshire, as well as rats in literature, films and TV and the rodent’s connections to ships and the sea, reflecting the region’s maritime heritage. Several designs pay homage to Ronson along with David Bowie:
A Spider from Hull by artist Hannah Van Green, is inspired by songs Only After Dark and The Man Who Sold the Worldand incorporates a painting of Mick Ronson during the Ziggy Stardust days of 1971.
Mick Ronson’s Life in Hull by Caitlin Smith covers the musician’s life growing up in the port of Hull and also features the iconic Ziggy Stardust motif, attached to Hull with its Fish Trail.
Glam Rat by Neil Ward, which celebrates one of the outrageous glam rock outfits that Mick Ronson wore in the 70s.
Other designs include Whale Tales and Rat Trails by Casey Dunn, that weaves the region’s connections to Herman Melville’s iconic novel, Moby Dick, into its design, particularly its connections to Hull, a key maritime city in the novel’s context of fishing and whaling. She also draws inspiration from the famous whale skeleton, Constable Moby, at Burton Constable Hall, East Yorkshire, which features in Melville’s tale.
The Find a Rat App is available from the App Store and Google Play, while the print guide can be picked up at Tourist Information Centres throughout Hull and East Yorkshire or be downloaded from the trail website.
For full details about A Mischief of Rats, visit https://amischiefofrats.co.uk/
For more details on Hull as a destination, see www.visithull.org and for East Yorkshire: www.visiteastyorkshire.co.uk
Photos: A Mischief of Rats
