ANDREA GARRIHY was born in Halifax in Yorkshire on April 3 1948 to Bernard and Irma Smith. Her father was an engineer by trade, but for three generations his grandfathers were hewers and delvers in the Yorkshire quarries.

Andrea went to Whitecliffe Mount Grammar School where she was considered a bright pupil. In 1967 she gained a place at Bath Academy of Art in Corsham where she studied sculpture.

She was the first member of her family to have a university education.

It was at college that she met a painter John Garrihy and they married in 1969 and lived in Corsham ever since.

She graduated in 1971 and took a post graduate certificate in education at Bristol University, and taught art at St Joseph's School in Swindon, until the birth of her first daughter Sarah in 1976; it was at this time that she also started to research women sculptors.

Her second daughter Jane was born in 1979 and it was when Jane started school that Andrea began to lecture on sculpture for the Wiltshire Workers Education Association and at Cheltenham Art College.

In January 1992 she was invited to Canada with a team of ex-Corsham sculpture students to represent England in an international snow sculpting competition. The team won second prize at Snowfest in Sarnia, Ontario and went on to a competition in Milwaukee, USA.

In 1998, with Lorna Green and Patrick Barker, she represented the UK in the Winter Olympic snow sculpting competition in Nagano, Japan, one of 14 countries from around the world.

She was invited to teach and lead a team of Norwegian snow sculptors in Norway in 2008.

In 1996 she was commissioned to carve Lord Methuen’s dog in Bath stone, which can be seen in Corsham Court garden, and in 1997 she carved the Scout and Guide emblems for their Corsham headquarters.

She was one of 1,000 artists around the country selected for ‘Year of the Artist’ Projects in 2000. This was a community project and she had a six-month residency in an empty shop in the Corsham precinct in which she gave workshops for local schools and adult groups, and produced sculptures in Corsham; seven life-sized figures of ordinary Corsham residents made out of junk.

They were exhibited on the streets of Corsham and featured on television, on Blue Peter, for which she was awarded a coveted badge.

Mrs Garrihy was commissioned to make a sculpture for the Neston Millennium Project and carve the Neston Knot which was installed at the Neston Recreation Ground in March 2002.

She took part in the popular King Bladud’s Pigs art event in Bath in 2008. Hydrock was her sponsor and Rocky, her pig, was placed on top of their silo at Coombe Downe; the highest flying pig in Bath.

Sadly, she lost her battle against cancer on March 27, 2016. She was 67.