40,000 small terracotta soldiers storm into the Spanish Barn, in Torquay, Devon.

The Terracotta Army is a famous art collection, by British artist Anthony Gormley, featuring 40,000 clay figurines. They were all made in St. Helen’s, Merseyside, as a community project. Children and their families were given clay balls to manipulate into a human shape, with two eyes. Each person created up to 200 terracotta figurines per day.

Now the Terracotta Army has been moved from London’s South Bank Center into the Torre Abbey’s Spanish Barn, in Torquay, Devon. All the 40,000 lilliputian terracotta soldiers must face in the same direction and must be viewed from a certain angle. That’s why volunteers were needed to walk through the ranks and arrange the figurines.

The young lady in the second photo is one such volunteer, walking carefully among the 8 to 26-cm-tall statuettes, in her socks. If one of the soldiers were to fall, it could lead to a disastrous domino effect.

Anthony Gormley’s Terracotta Army will be stationed inside the abbey for the summer, if you fancy a visit.

Photos by SWNS

via Daily Mail