Derby crowdfunding £30,000 to bring Lara Croft statue home

Derby fans are crowdfunding £30,000 to bring a nine-foot Lara Croft statue home

A grassroots campaign wants to move an original nine-foot Lara Croft statue from storage in London to Derby Market Hall, celebrating the city where Tomb Raider was created.

The nine-foot Lara Croft statue campaigners want to bring to Derby Image: BBC / campaign organisersOriginal source

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Derby’s gaming community is trying to bring one of the city’s most famous fictional exports home, in very large fibreglass form.

A £30,000 crowdfunding campaign has been launched to buy, move and install a nine-foot Lara Croft statue in Derby Market Hall. The sculpture was originally created for the Tomb Raider: The LIVE Experience in Camden and has been in storage since that attraction closed in 2023.

Tomb Raider was created by Core Design in Derby in 1996, making 2026 the franchise’s 30th anniversary. Campaign organiser Luke Earle, who also runs the city’s annual Tomb Raider Day, wants the statue to become a permanent landmark celebrating that part of Derby’s creative history.

By 25 August, the campaign had already raised almost half of its target, largely from fans around the world. The city is also hosting a free 30th-anniversary Tomb Raider exhibition at Pickford’s House until November.

Not every piece of local needs to be made of bronze and involve somebody on horseback. Sometimes it can be nine feet tall, wear shorts and have spent three years in a London storage unit.