IMMENSE pieces of timber have been dragged by tractors to the place where they will be turned into works of art.

Any day now the marquees will be put up on Hanbury Field, and the third Caerleon Arts Festival and International Sculpture Symposium will open in a veritable storm of sawdust and wood chippings.

From India and Eastern Europe, Greece, France and Italy, England and, of course, Wales, sculptors are even now converging on the Gwent town which has unbounded cultural ambitions.

Tim Davidson, 59, is the new chairman of Caerleon Arts Festival, which with surprisingly little fanfare is winning itself an international reputation.

"We have a unique selling point. Nowhere else, so far as I know, has decided to sell itself as a centre for wood sculpture," says the man who used to be deputy chief constable of Britain's second biggest police force after the Metropolitan Police.

A Worcestershire man, Tim Davidson came to Caerleon after retiring from the Thames Valley force and after reading for a history degree at Oxford University.

"I was entranced by Caerleon from the moment I saw it. Once here, getting drawn into the festival was more or less inevitable," he says. "I want people in Gwent and far beyond to understand the scale of what we are doing in Caerleon. Next month's Caerleon Arts Festival now registers on the international scale of events. It's big and getting bigger."

The 2003 festival made a small but distinct impression on the sculpture scene with the uniqueness of its vision. Like most brilliant things the idea behind it was simple.

Sculptors would come to Gwent and be given the materials and tools with which to work, with travel and accommodation costs all found.

In exchange, their wood sculptures stayed behind.

"That first festival in 2003 drew inquiries from 40 artists. That doubled the next year. This year 120 artists applied to take part.

"We're going to have a military display put on, organised by the National Museums and Art Gallery, and something that will be really spectacular, a screening of the film Spartacus in the amphitheatre on the first night.

"The core of it all, though, will remain the sculpture, with an Arthurian theme."

Tim Davidson approaches his job in the focused and structured manner one would expect of a former senior police officer, but there is something more.

He has a vivid feel for history and is well read on Caerleon's Arthurian links.

"The Arthurian and Celtic connection is a vital part of the whole event, and something that should link it with the people of Wales," he says.

"The connections between King Arthur and Caerleon are unarguable. In 1306 the prior of Bridlington speaks of the coronation of Edward II as being second only in magnificence to that of King Arthur's at Caerleon.

"You can't be in Caerleon without picking up on the Arthurian themes and the strength with which they are rooted in the community."

Tim Davidson achnowledges the role of Dr Russell Rhys as the festival's father.

"He has been the driving force from the outset, but what is really heartening is the way in which so many other people have come on board.

"Dylan Matthews at the Celtic Manor, Newport city council, Miguel Santiago at the Priory in Caerleon, Bryan Dale, who has looked after the logistics, and Mandy Watkins, in charge of the public relations, these and many more have all pulled together terrifically.

"At the core is about 20 people who are deeply involved in the organisation, but the broader band of support extends far beyond that.

"It genuinely is something that has caught the imagination of the whole commmunity. There is real enthusiasm and commitment which is because, at whatever level you care to look, Caerleon has something to be proud of.

"Firstly and most obviously there is the Roman and Arthurian connection, but there are also medieval and Chartist links.

"Tennyson was inspired to write Idylls of the King here, and it is the birthplace of Arthur Machen, whose writings, I understand, are to be published in a new edition by the Arthur Machen Society."

All the major things that will ensure the festival's success have been done.

All Tim Davidson and his committee can now do is the administrative fine-tuning.

On the prescribed date the sculptors will appear on the field and Caerleon will become once more a field of battle, not with spears and swords, but with chisels and saws as the wood sculptors impose their vision upon ancient oak and beech.

Tim Davidson, lately of Worcester, is here to stay.

"I have been seduced by the place. It has a magic which I have never really felt elsewhere," he says. "Like the trees that will become sculptures, this is where I will put down my roots."

* More details of the Caerleon Arts Festival and International Sculpture Symposium, July 6-17, can be found at www.caerleon-arts.org