A new statue celebrating the life of one of Forres’s most famous sons, has been unveiled in Grant Park.
The tribute to Sir Alexander Grant marks 100 years since he gifted the park to the people of Forres, and shows a carved effigy of his head and shoulders, with insets featuring snapshots of his life.
Grant is well-known locally as being the inventor of the Digestive biscuit, and his benevolence within the town and throughout Scotland is equally known.
Born in 1867, he went to school in the town, but left Forres to work at McVitie’s biscuit factory in Edinburgh. Five years later, he perfected the recipe for the Digesive biscuit, now popular throughout the world, and his recipe is still a closely-guarded secret.
The statue sits in the floral garden of Grant Park, and depicts the philanthropist encircled by a tree, with many intertwining branches featuring leaves which have a design relating to his life.
The carved snapshots show:
Grant Park was bought by Sir Alexander in 1924 for £5000, and gifted to the people of Forres to allow them unrestricted use for recreational purposes. He paid a further £1000 to fund the work involved to lay it out as a public park.
The sale included a house where the sunken gardens are now, but this was destroyed by fire in 1970.
The wooden statue, designed and carved by Pawel Drozd of Galloway Wood Carving, was unveiled at a ceremony on 24 August 2024 by his great-grandson Mark Laing.
