IT WAS a shocking spectacle and one Oxford shoppers never thought they would see again broken paving slabs in Cornmarket.

German artist Ursula Ziegler, pictured, brought back painful memories on Wednesday when she decided to push nine paving slabs the length of the street all in the name of art.

She left pensioners tripping in her wake and scratched the biscuit-coloured asphalt surface.

The project to resurface Cornmarket cost the city and county councils about £5m double the original estimate. Work was finally completed last June after years of disruption.

Miss Ziegler, a 36-year-old artist, who is on a placement at Oxford University's Ruskin School of Fine Art, said she contacted the councils for permission to carry out the live artwork, but they did not respond and she decided to go ahead.

Entitled Time Tip, Ms Ziegler used nine paving slabs, which once surrounded the Radcliffe Camera. She also used 50kg of sand which she poured through holes in the limestone slabs as she progressed slowly down the street from Carfax.

She described her work as "a contemplation of time passing, and of my time here in Oxford in relation to all time unfolding".

David Robertson, the county council's cabinet member for transport, said: "I've sent our engineers out to check if there has been any serious damage."