Windy weather saved Folkestone residents from living in the shadow of a huge human heart shaped balloon celebrating the 17th-century Folkestone heart physician William Harvey.

The story is disclosed in a new book about Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger to be published this month.

Called 'The Anatomy of Melancholy', the artwork was a proposal for Folkestone’s inaugural Triennial.

It was due to hang above a statue which depicts Harvey holding out an eviscerated human heart.

But Wallinger's project was delayed and then did not go ahead after he discovered, Folkestone was 'too windy'.

'Mark' published by Thames & Hudson describes more than a dozen of Wallinger’s unbuilt plans for everything from 10 huge white orbs at Stratford’s Olympic Park in east London to the world’s tallest flagpole ever built, proposed for the end of the Great North Run at South Shields.

Hawkinge Gazette and Channel Coast News 2011©