--- title: "Nine-foot Lara Croft statue heads for Derby’s Market Hall, 30 years after Tomb Raider was made there" url: https://badiyaa.com/lara-croft-statue-derby-market-hall/ published: 2026-10-22T01:55:00+01:00 modified: 2026-10-21T17:38:17+01:00 section: Offbeat publisher: Badiyaa --- # Nine-foot Lara Croft statue heads for Derby’s Market Hall, 30 years after Tomb Raider was made there Fans raised £33,314 to rescue the fiberglass figure from London storage; it is due on the Market Hall balcony this month, days before a Tomb Raider fan day on October 24. A 9-foot (2.7-meter) fiberglass Lara Croft is getting a permanent perch on the balcony of Derby Market Hall in England, in the city where the first Tomb Raider game was made. Fans paid for her. A Kickstarter appeal run by Derby-born Tomb Raider fan Luke Earle closed on £33,314 against a £30,000 target, and Derby City Council made the pledge that took it over the line. The statue is due to go on public show in October, the month of the series’ 30th anniversary. The city’s unofficial fan convention, TR30: Tomb Raider Day, follows at the QUAD arts center on Saturday, October 24. ## Why Derby, for players who only know the games Anyone who played the original Tomb Raider on PlayStation, Sega Saturn or PC in 1996 was playing a game built by Core Design, a studio then based on Ashbourne Road in Derby. Lara went on to front films, comics and a run of sequels; the next one, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, is in development at Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog and is scheduled for February 12, 2027. Derby has claimed her for years. A section of the city’s ring road became Lara Croft Way in 2010, and she has a star on the local walk of fame in Iron Gate. Fans already travel to see Ashbourne Road, the star and the road sign. The statue gives them a far bigger photo stop. ## Where this Lara has been The figure is not new. It stood outside Tomb Raider: The LIVE Experience, an attraction at Camden Market in London that ran from 2021 until it shut in 2023, and has sat in storage for roughly three years since. Earle has said he feared the statue could be lost or end up in a private collection, so he set out to buy it. The campaign money covers the purchase, a restoration, transport and installation. The council’s share comes from grant funding secured for local regeneration and pays for the installation and display at the Osnabrück Square end of the hall’s balcony. ## The numbers behind a fan-funded landmark - **Backers:** 254, pledging between £10 and £2,500. - **Average pledge:** about £131 per backer (£33,314 divided by 254). - **Pace:** more than £16,000 came in within days of the August launch, yet the appeal was still roughly £10,000 short with 11 days left before it closed on September 14. - **Overshoot:** the final total beat the target by £3,314, about 11 percent. Her new home has a long history of its own. Derby Market Hall first opened in 1866 and reopened on May 24, 2025, after a £35.1 million restoration of the Grade II-listed building, beginning with its cast iron, copper and glass roof, according to [Derby City Council](https://derby.gov.uk/news/2025/february/market-hall-reopen/). ## What the organizers say Earle pitched the idea in tourist terms when the appeal launched. “Just as Nottingham has Robin Hood, Derby has Lara Croft, and it would be great to have a statue of her in the city center to remind everyone that she was born here in the city,” he said. Councillor Gurkiran Kaur, the council’s cabinet member for city centre, culture and tourism, tied it to the local games industry: “This statue will be a tribute to our heritage and inspire Derby’s future game designers and creative pioneers.” For anyone planning a trip, TR30 tickets cost £45, and the announced guests include Natalie Cook, the first official Lara Croft model (1996-1997), and Judith Gibbins, who voiced Lara in Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III. ## Further reading - [Derby City Council: Derby’s Market Hall to reopen after £35.1m refurbishment](https://derby.gov.uk/news/2025/february/market-hall-reopen/) *Image: Malcolm Neal, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*