Lara Croft statue set to return to Derby

A 9ft (2.7m) statue of Tomb Raider hero Lara Croft is due to arrive at a temporary site in her home city of Derby ahead of its permanent installation.

The sculpture formed part of the Tomb Raider: The LIVE Experience in Camden Market in London but has been in storage since the attraction closed in 2023.

Following a £30,000 fundraising appeal to bring the statue to Derby and create a permanent landmark celebrating the city's role in video game folklore, the fibreglass effigy will go on display at the Museum of Making from Wednesday for "a number of weeks" before moving to its "forever home" at the Market Hall.

Its arrival comes ahead of the city's sixth Tomb Raider Day on Saturday.

After being developed at a studio in Ashbourne Road in the 1990s, the Tomb Raider games became best-sellers and Lara Croft a global icon.

The character holds several Guinness World Records, including best-selling videogame heroine and most magazine covers for a videogame character, and was voted the most iconic video game character of all-time to mark the 20th BAFTA Games Awards in 2024.

Lara Croft has already left a physical mark in Derby, with part of the city's inner ring road from Osmaston Road to Burton Road named Lara Croft Way in 2010, and a star in her name set into the pavement in Iron Gate as part of the city's Walk of Fame installed in 2018.

More than 200 people around the world pledged £33,314 to the statue appeal, alongside a Derby City Council grant for the installation and display on the balcony at the Osnabruck Square end of Derby Market Hall.

Derby-born Tomb Raider fan Luke Earle, who set up the appeal 30 years after the release of the franchise's first video game, said seeing the statue arrive in the city was a "dream come true".

"We're really grateful to the museum for making sure that everyone who is coming to the event can visit her while her permanent home is being prepared," he said.

"It's long been an ambition of mine to get a statue of Lara installed in Derby and to have achieved that in time for Tomb Raider Day, in her 30th anniversary year, makes it even more special."

As well as organising Lara Croft Day, Earle has lent his collection of memorabilia to the 30th anniversary exhibition at Pickford's House Museum.

Alix Wilton Regan, the new voice of Lara Croft in the forthcoming video game Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, will visit the statue as part of the city's Tomb Raider Day celebrations.

Dr Alex Rock, director of commercial and operations at Derby Museums, said: "Lara Croft is one of Derby's most famous exports – made in Derby and celebrated worldwide.

"The response to the crowdfunding campaign has been incredible, and we're delighted to be presenting this sneak preview of the Lara Croft statue before she finds her forever home at Derby Market Hall."

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