The Big Golden Dog – Glenreagh

The relationship between name and object runs the useful direction here. Most roadside pieces are added to a business and then explained; this one makes a pub's existing name literal, so the sculpture is a three-dimensional pub sign in the oldest sense – the tradition that gave England its Red Lions and White Harts, when signs had to be pictures because customers could not necessarily read.

Glenreagh is a small village inland from Coffs Harbour on the Orara River, on the old road north, and its other claim is the Glenreagh Mountain Railway, a heritage line preserved along part of the former Dorrigo branch.

Pub Big Things are a substantial category in this catalogue and a consistently durable one – the Koumala beer can, the North Geelong sphinx, the Larrimah stubbie. A pub has every reason to maintain its landmark, because the landmark is how travellers find it.

What the dog's name refers to, and whether there was a particular animal behind it, is not recorded.

The decade it belongs to, the maker's name, the dimensions and the material used are simply not known.