Concrete Cows, a Colossal Bench and a Ring on a Hill: Britain's Most Gloriously Pointless Landmarks

There is a particular kind of British genius that builds a motorway, then builds a giant concrete badger beside it. We don't do grand statements of national pride anymore, not really. What we do is a fibreglass apple in a layby and a brown tourist sign pointing at it like it's Hadrian's Wall.

These landmarks are pointless. They serve no function. They are not strategically important, they are not economically significant, and nobody has ever planned a holiday around one. And yet every single one of them has a car park, a small queue on a Sunday, and someone in the comments insisting it's actually very good.

Here are six worth the fuel.

The Concrete Cows, Milton Keynes

Location: The loose herd beside the V6 Grafton Street, Milton Keynes.

The story: In 1978, artist Liz Leyh built a herd of cows out of scrap and concrete with help from local schoolchildren, and plonked them in a field that was, at that point, mostly a building site. The joke was that Milton Keynes was having to fake its own countryside. Nearly five decades later the joke has aged into affection. There are replicas, there's merchandise, there's a whole local identity built on four grey bovines that will never moo.

Worth the detour? Yes, but adjust expectations. They are cows. They are grey. They're brilliant because they're grey and in Milton Keynes, and somehow that's the whole point.

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, south London

Location: Crystal Palace Park, London SE19, a ten-minute walk from the station.

The story: Unveiled in 1854, these are the world's first attempt at full-scale dinosaur reconstructions, and they are magnificently, gloriously wrong. The iguanodon has its thumb on its nose. The creatures look like overfed toads. The whole thing was built before anyone really knew what a dinosaur was, and rather than quietly correct them, London put a fence around them and made them heritage.

Worth the detour? Absolutely. No roadside landmark in the country is funnier, and the surrounding park is genuinely lovely. Bring a child if you want an excuse to be this delighted.

The Oversized Picnic Bench

Location: A farm shop car park off a main road, Midlands-ish. You'll know it when you see it. Follow the brown sign. Everyone's aunt has a photo of it.

The story: Britain has quietly installed an enormous number of colossal household objects. There is something deep in the national character that finds a bench the size of a bus inherently funny, and honestly, fair enough. These benches exist so that a family of four can sit on one leg of the thing and take a photo that their grandad will show to strangers for years. The engineering is baffling. The commitment is total. Nobody has ever explained why.

Worth the detour? Only if you have a car full of people willing to climb onto it. Which you do.

The Halo, Rossendale

Location: Top o' Slate, above Rossendale, Lancashire. Steep walk from the car park; not a flip-flop situation.

The story: A 20-metre steel ring balanced on a single pole, built in 2007 as part of a project to put art on the moors rather than in galleries. From the right angle it looks like a spaceship landing pad. From the wrong angle it looks like a very expensive roundabout decoration. On a clear day, the view will genuinely stop you mid-sentence.

Worth the detour? Yes — but the walk is the point. The ring is just an excuse to get up there, which is either a beautiful description of public art or a brutal review of it.

The Singing Ringing Tree, Burnley

Location: Crown Point, above Burnley, Lancashire. Yes, this lot are spoiled up there.

The story: A stack of steel pipes sculpted to look like a windblown tree, arranged so that the wind plays it like a vast, slightly out-of-tune instrument. On a gusty day it makes a low, mournful hum that has been described as "haunting" by everyone who has ever described it. It sounds like a dial tone from another dimension.

Worth the detour? Yes, on a windy day only. On a still day you have driven up a hill to look at some pipes.

The Willow Man, Bridgwater

Location: Beside the M5 near Bridgwater, Somerset. You've seen him from the car and assumed you imagined it.

The story: A 12-metre figure woven from willow, made in 2000 to mark the millennium and now a permanent landmark for anyone driving to the West Country. He leans slightly. He has no face. He has become such a fixture that people genuinely worry about him when the weather turns. He is, by some distance, the best thing about that particular stretch of motorway.

Worth the detour? No detour needed. He does his best work at 70mph.

And the one nobody can explain

There is, somewhere on a British A-road, a large concrete structure on a plinth that nobody agrees on. Locals will give you four different stories — a wartime decoy, a ventilation shaft, an abandoned sculpture, a mistake. There is no plaque. There is no helpful sign. There is just a thing, being a thing, beside a road.

This is the purest form of the genre. Landmarks we love because they are famous; landmarks we love more because they are not.

Why we can't leave them alone

Because they're free. Because they break a journey. Because a giant concrete animal is an achievable bit of joy in a country where most days involve a queue, a parking app and a mild drizzle. Because you can tell someone "pull over, there's a big thing" and for thirty seconds everyone in the car is eight years old again.

They also say something quietly nice about us. We're a nation that doesn't really build monuments to the powerful anymore, but we will absolutely crowdfund a statue of a local dog. We'd rather be amused than impressed.

So next time you see that brown sign, take the exit. The destination is a grey cow. But the day out is yours.