Surrey town’s tribute sculpture to The Jam ranked ‘among Britain’s worst’ by magazine
In 2012 Woking unveiled a public‑art commission that was meant to celebrate the town’s most famous musical export, The Jam. Designed by East Sussex sculptor Richard Heys and officially titled The Space Between, the work consists of three towering wooden pillars arranged in a triangular formation, each standing about 18 feet tall and together weighing close to eight tonnes.
The brief was unusually poetic – the artist said the forms were inspired by how children described the band’s music. The result is a stark, minimalist structure that invites viewers to contemplate rhythm and space rather than present literal likenesses of Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton or Rick Buckler.
Critics have been far less forgiving. In a recent roundup of “bafflingly awful” British music monuments, Far Out Magazine singled the Woking piece out for “missing the urgent, fired‑up spirit” of the mod‑revival punk movement. The publication’s writer dismissed the sculpture as a case of “radical unorthodoxy” that simply does not translate to a public monument.
Despite the backlash, the work remains a rare physical reminder of The Jam’s impact on a working‑class suburb that helped shape the band’s lyrics. Earlier street art in Sheerwater paid homage with graffiti and a blue scooter, but that mural has since vanished amid regeneration. The wooden pillars, for better or worse, now stand as the most permanent tribute to the group in Surrey.