The £7,500 peacock that brings grace, elegance and beauty... but without the noise and the defecation
Peacocks are beautiful birds — but that doesn't mean they're easy to live with. Unless they're not really peacocks at all...

Peacocks look amazing.
But they are horribly, just horribly loud when they start squawking. And, like any large fowl, they have a habit of — ahem — 'doing their business' all over your lawn, on your garden paths, and around the paving stones that frame your delightful pond.
Luckily, the peacocks that adorn this website, and pop up occasionally on the pages of our printed Country Life counterpart, have the same graceful lines as the real thing without causing any disturbance to your life. And that disturbance can indeed be great.
The small flaw in this plan is something that you've no doubt already spotted: you can't put a website, or a page from a magazine, on display in your garden. That's where sculptor Jane Gordon Clark comes in, with this life-size recreation of a peacock in 'cold-cast bronze resin'. (We've no idea what that means, but we're pretty sure that bronze resin can't poo on the grass, so you're safe.)
What prompted this fine piece of work by the artist? Well, it seems that Jane's experiences of these birds mirror our own fairly closely:
‘I was inspired by the peacocks in a friend’s garden, where they roam imperiously as if royalty, surveying their realm,’ says Jane.
‘My peacock can gracefully enhance a garden, but will not screech.’
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
The peacocks can be commissioned at £7,500 — see www.janegordonclark.co.uk for more details.
Credit: Getty Images/EyeEm
Peacocks: Everything you need to know about 'the limousine of the avian kingdom'
Graceful peafowl have never been shy about coming forward, although most of us admire the males’ flamboyant tail feathers —
Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
Country Life Today: The ASBO-worthy peacocks causing chaos in a sleepy English village
Today's round-up features a spat over roaming birds, looks at how our environment is shaping our shopping habits and a
Toby Keel is Country Life's Digital Director, and has been running the website and social media channels since 2016. A former sports journalist, he writes about property, cars, lifestyle, travel, nature.
-
How many puppies in the average litter? Country Life Quiz of the Day
Plus a 1960s house, Hollywood's most famous cavewoman and more in Friday's quiz.
By Toby Keel Published
-
Love, sex and death: Our near-universal obsession with the rose
No flower is more entwined with myth, religion, politics and the human form than the humble rose — and now there's a new coffee table book celebrating them in all of their glory.
By Amy de la Haye Last updated