The Headington Shark House

Dr. Magnus Hanson-Heine. Quantum Chemist. Owner of The Headington Shark House.

The Shark House is a 25ft long fibreglass and steel sculpture of a shark, formally titled “Untitled 1986”, crashing through the roof of an otherwise average house on a quiet residential street in rural Oxford.

This surreal piece of public protest art was conceived of by my late father Bill Heine and sculptor John Buckley. It was created in secret, and erected intentionally without planning permission on the 9th August 1986 on the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, starting what ended up being a six-year long legal battle to keep it. The shark has strong themes of opposition to government censorship, nuclear and conventional warfare, and has become an unofficial symbol of the area.