You walk through the door and it as if you walked into the mansion of Charles Foster Kane – such is the overwhelming collection of unlikely paraphernalia that you encounter when you visit St Michael & All Angel’s, Shoreditch.

Deconsecrated long ago, the handsome High Victorian Gothic church of 1865, designed by James Brooks, has been a showroom for Westland architectural salvage since 1977 and the eclectic display of statues, fireplaces and chandeliers in this setting is a breathtaking spectacle to behold. In his ‘Buildings of England,’ Sir Niklaus Pevsner wrote, “The whole is an eminently picturesque fantasy and it is a great shame that it has fallen into such shocking neglect,” yet today it has found an alternative role that proposes a strange complement to its fanciful design.

The surrealism of multiple architectural elements from different eras arranged in random combination within a disorienting labyrinth of rooms on two floors within the church is as intoxicating as any film by Jean Cocteau. You feel you are walking through chambers in the unconscious mind of some deranged architect or a netherworld of architectural keepsakes assembled by an acquisitive time-traveller.

The church and adjoining clergy house

St Michael & All Angels, Leonard St, Shoreditch, 1865

In a strange precursor of its current use, this engraving of 1865 shows the makeshift church built within the structure while it was under construction.

Westland, St Michael & All Angels’ Church, Leonard St, EC2A 4QX

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Raf Szafruga, heroic scyther

In celebration of Lammastide, which marks the beginning of the grain harvest, Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I went along to join the mowers wielding scythes on Walthamstow Marshes at the weekend. Although scything exists in the public imagination as a resolutely macho activity, we discovered a range of participants of both sexes and all ages eager to take up scythes and set forth onto the grasslands.

Devised by Kathrin Böhm & Louis Buckley, this is the third year of Community Hay Harvest upon the Lammas Lands, which were originally drained for agriculture in ancient times and exist now as one of the last areas of natural marshland in London, protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

In the nineteenth century, this became the location of conflict when the East London Waterworks illegally fenced off some of the marshes and, on 1st August 1892, several thousand local people turned out to take down the fences and reclaim the Common Land. William Morris, who was born and brought up in Walthamstow and knew these marshes as child, was instrumental in setting up the Commons Preservation Society in 1865 to protect land such as this, which has been in common ownership for centuries.

“We’ve hit one hundred!” declared scything expert Clive Leeke, who had been giving lessons, “more than one hundred local people have come to learn scything.” As the climax of the afternoon, the joyful scythers set off together in a line cutting rhythmically through the long grass under the wide sky and Clive explained that, in spite of the heat, he was not expecting see any perspiration. Scything is about having good technique and a sharp blade rather than physical strength, I learnt.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that Raf Szafruga from Poland made headway across the marshes far in advance of all the other mowers. Clive explained that, over the weekend, East Europeans who were blackberrying around the marsh came to join the scything and had no need of lessons. “They’ve never lost touch with the land, like we have,” he admitted to me with a grin and a shrug.

Yet as we turned our heads, we could see the line of mowers their working away across the marsh as they would have done before the railway came and it was remarkable how swiftly they had picked up these age-old skills. At the end of proceedings, Clive presented a Lammas loaf to the mower with best overall performance and style, and we all went away sunburnt and satisfied by a memorable summer afternoon on Walthamstow Marshes.

Scything Guru, Clive Leeke, teaches ‘Scything without tears’

Richard Williams - “I was born in the country but I have lived in London for thirty years”

Sharpening the blades with whetstones

Natalie Wood won the prize for the best windrow

Julian Weston - “Yesterday, I did my first scything and today I won a competition.”

Louis Buckley

Kathrin Böhm & her son Lawrence

Kathrin - “My heart is gladdened that so many people have come out to give it a try”

Kent & William Sturgis

Lammas loaf baked by Jojo Tulloh with flour ground in Hackney

Click on this group photo to enlarge

Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien

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Mr & Mrs

“It’s only in later life that you become interested in your family,” Ruth Franklin admitted to me when I visited her exhibition of sculpture CURLERS & CUTS in Whitechapel yesterday, “when you are young you want to rebel against them.” Over a century ago, Ruth’s grandparents on her mother’s side came from Russia and her grandparents on her father’s side came from Poland, and they all ended up in the East End where Ruth’s father, Alfred, was born in Leslie St in Mile End.

Alfred became a successful hairdresser and wigmaker in the West End and Ruth remembers her Russian-speaking granny, a seamstress who lived upstairs when Ruth was a child and taught her to swear in Russian. “It’s exciting to be creating work that celebrates my family,” Ruth announced as we stood surrounded by her sculptures, which are vivid and emotional evocations of her forebears’ professions.

“They came with nothing,” Ruth informed me as I leaned over to examine her intricately-wrought constructions, made from humble materials and recalling the tools and working practices of tailoring and hairdressing. The painstaking manufacture of some of these sculptures is a reflection of the care required to fashion clothing and hairstyles, and – inevitably – these objects take on anthropomorphic personalities. They remind us of the intimate nature of such endeavours, since the cut of clothes and styling of hair are the means by which we present ourselves to the world.

Equally, there is a childlike quality to the notion of making models of machines in paper, almost like toys, and of fabricating primitive dolls out of old tools, which imbues Ruth’s work with pathos. We come into the world with nothing and we leave with nothing but, in between, these people laboured with their hands to make others look their best and earn a modest living by it. Ruth Franklin’s tender sculptures honour those whose hard work delivered her into existence.

Sewing machine with dials (waxed architectural paper & thread)

Red sewing machine (waxed paper & thread)

Blue sewing machine (blueprint paper & thread)

Red thread sewing machine (mono-printed paper & thread)

Iron (waxed paper & thread)

Pink hairdryer (waxed paper & thread)

Grey hairdryer (waxed paper & thread)

Hairdryer (collage)

Hairdressing tools (waxed paper & thread)

Hairdressing tools, 2 (waxed paper & thread)

Hairdressing tools, 3 (waxed paper & thread)

Equipment (hair rollers, waxed paper, card & plastic)

The Salon (waxed paper, hair rollers, hand drill, wood & marking knife)

Tools for the salon  (cotton reel, tools, brush & drill)

Tools for the salon, 2 (metal tools, brush & litho print)

Curling machine (metal tools, hair, roller & wooden sleeve board)

Manya (wooden sleeve board, waxed paper & cloth)

Alfy in May, mother’s brogue (paper & thread)

Ruth’s grandparents, Morris Frankel & Leah Passack in Margate, 1906

Artwork copyright © Ruth Franklin

Ruth Franklin’s exhibition CURLERS & CUTS is at Idea Store Whitechapel until Saturday 30th August

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Mike Henbrey’s Collection of Dividers

Stop The Blocks is staging a Closed House Weekend as a means to draw attention to the catalogue of contested sites in the East End. The aim is to highlight how public space is being closed for private profit, how new housing is excluding the majority of people, and the devastating effect this is having.  If you would like to know more, join tomorrow’s walking tour meeting on Saturday 8th August at Whitechapel Station at 11am.

Click on this map to enlarge and print it out

Arnold Circus & The Boundary Estate

The Boundary Estate was the first Council housing estate in England and is Grade II listed. As well as being beautiful, it was designed so that every flat would receive sunlight at forty-five degrees to its windows, and the spaces between blocks are generous and the rooms are light. This contrasts with much of today’s high-density housing with its dark, single aspect apartments and poor standard of outside space. The Estate’s residents were behind the recent major improvements to the Circus, its gardens and bandstand.

The Balfron Tower

Built as council housing, designed by Erno Goldfinger in 1963 and made a Grade II listed building in 1996, Balfron Tower is now being sold off by Poplar Housing & Regeneration Association. Current long-term residents are being forced to sell and moved out while the famous block is being fetishised in a sixties-style marketing campaign to attract private owners. The circumstances at Balfron Tower are a prime example of how social restructuring is devastating London’s working-class communities. Another layer of social division was added when artists renting emptied properties were co-opted tacitly into PR for the sell-off – a process that has become known as ‘art wash.’ For more information – Balfron Social Club

Bethnal Green Gas Holders

Soon nothing will stand on the banks of the canals and waterways to connect us with the East End’s industrial past as luxury apartments gain hold. Tower Hamlets and English Heritage have refused to protect and list the historic No.2 and No.5 Gas holders designed with classical detailing by Joseph Clark in 1886 and 1889, giving this part of the canal its strong character. For more information – East End Waterways Group

Bishopsgate Goodsyard

The proposed development is a faceless mega-complex of luxury residential towers that will cast giant shadows over the surrounding communities, stealing their light and giving nothing back to Shoreditch, Spitalfields & Brick Lane. Since 2002, the public has been excluded from the big plans for this public land, leased by Hammerson & Ballymore from owners Railtrack. ‘More Light More Power’ seeks to regain control, to promote inspirational and innovative development of the Goodsyard, with well-designed mid-rise buildings that offer liveable, affordable housing and small business workspace. It needs to be commercially viable, yet integrated with the surrounding neighbourhoods. For more information – More Light More Power

Chapman House, Bigland St, Shadwell

After he reported dangerous conditions at the nineteen-apartment block in Shadwell where he has lived for twenty-five years, Michael James’ landlord tried to evict him twice. After consulting a solicitor, it transpired Michael was an assured tenant but his landlord responded by increasing his rent by 70% – presumably to force him out by alternative means. In a desperate bid to stay in his home, Michael James contacted the Rent Assessment Committee, who, after inspecting the dilapidated flat, ruled only a 0.4% increase was merited. The landlord, a charity that owns around seventy properties and pays no tax, faces a six-figure repair bill following council inspections. Michael James now speaks out to encourage others to stand up to rogue landlords.  For more information - Tower Hamlets Renters

Chrisp St Market, Poplar

‘Save Chrisp St Market’ is campaigning to inform local residents and traders about the proposed ‘regeneration’ of Chrisp St Market by Poplar Housing & Regeneration Association (HARCA). The plans include ‘luxury’ housing and stores, at the expense of shops and accommodation affordable for local people. Traders will be booted out for the period of redevelopment, or longer – if they cannot afford the increased rents. Traders say they have been left in the dark about the future of the market. Save Chrisp St intends to do their own consultation in parallel with­­­ Poplar HARCA’s, by going door-to-door asking people about what they would like to see for the area. So far, many people have said they want the market to be improved, but not at the cost of their ability to live there. Save Chrisp St are working to make sure that the community has a proper voice. For more information – Save Chrisp St Market

Cremer St Studios, Hoxton

In May, more than one hundred and thirty artists artists in Cremer St Studios were told by their studio provider, ACAVA, to sign a letter stating “I confirm my full support for the proposed redevelopment of the property” or be forced out of the building in months.  The owners are D & J Simons of Hackney Rd and the developers are Regal Homes who have submitted a pre-planning application to Hackney Council to demolish all existing buildings on the site for a mixed-use development – including a twenty-storey tower block.

The George Tavern, Commercial Rd

The George Tavern is a historic public house, and celebrated art and music venue. The Halfway House tavern upon this site is mentioned in the writing of Dickens, Pepys & Chaucer. Owner, Pauline Forster, has been shortlisted for an Historic England Angel Award in recognition of her achievement in restoring the building. Meanwhile, Tower Hamlets Council put the future of The George in jeopardy by granting permission to Swan Housing to build six flats adjoining the pub. Save the George Tavern is mounting a legal challenge. For information contact - The George Tavern

The Holland Estate, Spitalfields

The Holland Estate is a nineteen-twenties brick-built estate in Spitalfields. The registered social landlord, EastEnd Homes, propose to demolish it and destroy a thriving diverse community of over six hundred people to make way for primarily-private, high-rise development. Residents do not want this and a petition signed by over 70% of residents, a motion passed by the resident-led Estate Management Board and a unanimous motion passed by Tower Hamlets Council have all been against the demolition. But EastEnd Homes are ploughing on with their redevelopment plans regardless. Residents have decided to take things into their own hands to make it clear that demolition of these blocks is unwanted. Instead, they are campaigning for EastEnd Homes to refurbish their buildings, as originally agreed when the estate was handed over by Tower Hamlets Council in 2006 — a promise they have repeatedly broken. For more information  - Bernard, Brune & Carter Residents

The Joiners Arms, Shoreditch

The Joiners Arms opened as a queer pub in 1997 and swiftly established a reputation as a welcoming, diverse and at times hedonistic venue. The property owners closed it in January 2015 and it remains shuttered and empty, awaiting unspecified development (strongly rumoured to involve demolition and a luxury apartment tower block). The Friends of the Joiners Arms is campaigning to re-open the venue – transforming it into London’s only cooperatively-owned-and-managed Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer/Intersex/Asexual Community Centre, keeping the late-license pub at its heart. They have already won Asset of Community Value status (which gives them a chance to bid if the owners decide to sell) but the fight continues to demand that the Joiners Arms be given back to the queer community to run, providing space for life, love and liberty. For more information – The Joiners Arms

The London Chest Hospital, Bethnal Green

The London Chest Hospital opened in 1855 to treat tuberculosis sufferers. As well as gaining an international reputation for the treatment of heart and lung disease, the hospital has cared for servicemen exposed to poison gas in the First World War and air raid victims in the Second World War. In April 2015, Barts & the London NHS Trust shut the hospital, moved its services to Bart’s Hospital and put the site up for sale. The Trust is currently in negotiations with a buyer. No planning permission has been granted but the site has been earmarked as offering “significant potential for residential development.” You can see the marketing brochure here www.essentia.uk.com (search “chest” and click on brochure). Tower Hamlets Green Party is launching a campaign to prevent this historic site becoming another soulless development of luxury homes. They want to ensure that whatever happens to the hospital, the site continues to be used for a purpose that has the needs of the borough’s residents at its heart.

The London Fruit & Wool Exchange, Spitalfields

The Fruit & Wool Exchange was formerly home to two hundred small businesses, for which office space is sorely lacking in the capital. Developers Exemplar are demolishing it, including the Gun pub, and the entire office development has already been leased to a single international law firm. Mayor of London Boris Johnson forced this on Tower Hamlets, overruling the unanimous vote of the planning committee twice. He claimed it would “regenerate the area with thousands of new jobs and contribute to the wider economy of London” yet the soulless corporate architecture will deaden the lively streetscape of Spitalfields for decades to come.

National Barge Travellers Association

NBTA is a volunteer organisation providing support and advice for boat dwellers without permanent moorings. The boater population is increasing, in part caused by the housing crisis, as more people are forced to find survival alternatives. Despite having the money needed to provide sufficient facilities, the Canal & River Trust (CART) is removing facilities in some areas and creating permanent moorings that are unaffordable to the majority. The boater community is under threat as CART makes it more difficult to live on the water. Every year, NBTA supports boat dwellers who are unfairly evicted and their boats seized, including people that are disabled, elderly or ill. For more information – National Barge Travellers’ Association

Norton Folgate

On 21st July, Tower Hamlets’ planning committee unanimously refused permission for British Land to demolish more than 70% of buildings they hold in the Elder St Conservation Area in Spitalfields primarily to build offices on a site owned by the Corporation of London. Led by the Spitalfields Trust, the campaign has gained support London-wide and five hundred people held hands around the buildings on 19th July to demand re-use not demolition. Although the result shows people-power in action, the battle for Norton Folgate is not over yet.  For more information – Save Norton Folgate

no.w.here, 316-318 Bethnal Green Rd

For ten years no.w.here has worked in Tower Hamlets as a community project, open artist platform and film laboratory built on the historical legacy of the London Filmmakers Co-operative. Run by cultural workers who place value on education, resistance, collaboration and free expression, no.w.here’s long standing work and projects are under threat from property developers. Vital in its community, no.w.here does not view displacement by billionaires or the destruction of communities as a natural evolution. For Closed House Weekend, you are invited  to visit no.w.here’s lab and community project space where they seek to exchange know-how, experience, support and possibility. For more information – no.w.here

Olympic Legacy Land

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) now makes all the planning decisions inside this new Mayoral boundary, part of  the four ‘legacy’ boroughs. This ex-Tower Hamlets land includes waterways and areas of industrial heritage in Fish Island near Hackney Wick, where affordable workspace and historic buildings are under threat. Very few people are aware that ‘Olympic Legacy’ planning decisions take place in LLDC offices in Stratford. Developers were allowed to stake out their territory early on in the Olympic process and the LLDC is allowing pitifully-low levels of affordable housing in the new developments. For more information – East End Waterways Group

One Commercial St, Aldgate

One Commercial St has been a focus of the ‘poor doors’ protests which highlight new developments built with two entrances, one for private owners and another for occupants of social housing. Thus property agents can reassure prospective buyers that their doors will not be shared by lesser mortals. In Stratford, a development by Galliard was proudly marketed as “fully private – no social housing.” Now Galliard proposes 0% social housing in their new development on the former West Ham Ground in Newham.

Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital, Bethnal Green

On the developer’s hoardings, ‘bagel lady’ brandishes a signifier of East End authenticity to her glossed lips. Invented by the marketing department, she is an idealised future tenant of the Tower Hamlets/Hackney border. Campaigns to save the old hospital failed and demolition has left only one façade, one brick deep. Recently in Hackney, the Haggerston Estate, Tony’s Café, Spirit’s Shop, The Four Aces & Dalston Lane, have all gone, even though successful activism reinvigorated some housing associations. Doubtless, these areas needed help and change, but who is benefitting from the changes which are been enacted? Why must residents buy, not rent? What is a true definition of ‘affordable housing’? Can we preserve historic buildings and communities? Is bagel lady the heir apparent in the property-owning monocultural future of East London? For further information – I Am Not A Village

Robin Hood Gardens

Tower Hamlets Council failed to maintain this unique sixties estate and allowed Swan Housing to plan its demolition for a faceless new scheme called Blackwall Regeneration. Consultation with the residents was weighted in favour of that aim, but an independent survey of residents found 80% of people wanted refurbishment, not demolition. The estate of 231 homes comprising Robin Hood Gardens was built by Alison & Peter Smithson and notable present-day architects including Lord Rogers are asking for it to be listed.

The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel

The Royal London is the largest hospital in Europe, costing £1.1bn to build, but thanks to the Private Finance Initiative agreement that funded it, will cost the taxpayer £7.1 billon over the next forty years. The repayment terms are so crippling the Royal London is currently running a £93m deficit, which explains why the lights on the top floors are never lit – Barts cannot afford to fit them out and use them. Meanwhile, staff shortages are pushing overworked doctors and nurses to walk out and waiting lists to increase, but Innisfree and construction firm Skanska will continue to collect fat profits for another thirty-five years – unless the hospital goes bankrupt, which technically it already is. Then it would pass into their private hands.

Sainsbury’s Tower/ Collingwood Estate, Whitechapel

Whitechapel Masterplan was pushed through by Tower Hamlets Council in 2013 with little public awareness. Crossrail is central to the suburbanisation of the area and Sainsbury’s wants to double the size of the supermarket and build six hundred new homes on its roof with a thirty-three-storey tower. While the area desperately needs more genuinely affordable housing, Sainsbury’s – owner of the land – is offering a pathetic 10%, despite Tower Hamlets’ target of 35%. For more information – Whitechapel Masterplan

Shoreditch Towers

Many are unaware there are three giant towers looming over the southern tip of Hackney, two with planning permission already.

1. Fifty-storey ‘Principal Place’ is being built on Bishopsgate, north of Liverpool St Station and next to the former Light Bar. For more information – Principal Place

2. Forty-storey residential skyscraper, ‘Bard Tower’ has planning permission on Curtain Rd upon the site of the Curtain Theatre where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first presented.

3. Thirty-storey tower proposed by a New York hotel chain at 201-207 Shoreditch High St on the site of Majestic Wine and Chariots Sauna is currently in planning. For more information search application no. 2015/2403 in planning pages at www.hackney.gov.uk

Spitalfields Market

In 2002, campaigners warned that the Corporation of London’s demolition of half the Market to construct offices was the start of an incursion beyond the City’s boundary, into places that the Corporation began to call the ‘City Fringe.’ Following the Market’s redevelopment, large increases in shop rents severed its connection with the local community and developers Hammerson sold it off, moving on to the Bishopsgate Goodsyard. 35,000 people signed a petition opposing demolition of Spitalfields Market during a long campaign.

Weavers Fields, Bethnal Green

Barge racing season on the Thames Estuary

Crossing the marshes beyond Faversham at night, heading towards Oare Creek, my heart leapt in anticipation to see the mast of the Thames Sailing Barge Repertor outlined against the last fading light in a sky of gathering clouds. They were harbingers of a storm that woke me in my cabin with thunder and lightning, though when I woke next morning as the engine started up and the barge slid off down the creek towards the open sea, a shaft of sunlight descended through the skylight. Yet even this was short lived, with soft rain descending as we skirted the Kent Marshes towards the starting line of the Swale Sailing Barge Match.

Originally established by Henry Dodds in 1863, the annual Sailing Barge races that take place each summer around the Thames Estuary were once opportunities for commercial rivalry in the days when arriving first to pick up cargo meant winning the business. Their continuation in the present day manifests the persistence of the maritime culture that once defined these riverside communities. On Repertor, skipper David Pollock was assisted by three local gentlemen in his crew – Dennis Pennell, Brian Weaver and Doug Powell – who I believe would not be averse to being described as ‘sea dogs.’ Dennis and Brian went to school together in Faversham and all began their long nautical careers working on these Sailing Barges when they ran commercially – and today David enjoys the benefit of their collective knowledge.

An experienced skipper in his own right, David is a veteran of this race with several notable success and was eager to distinguish himself again this year. Picking up speed upon approaching the starting line, we were surrounded by a scattering of other brown-sailed Thames Sailing Barges and attended by a variety of traditional Thames sailing vessels including Smacks and Bawleys that have their own classes within the race. The sun broke through again, dismissing the tail-end of the rain and, even as we set out upon the green ocean, there was a line of Sailing Barges that extended ahead and behind us upon the sparkling water.

For an inexperienced sailor like myself, this was an overwhelming experience – deafened by the roar and crash of the waves and the relentless slap that the wind makes upon the sail, dazzled by the reflected sunlight and buffeted by the wind which became the decisive factor of the day. The immense force of the air propelled the vast iron hull, skimming forward through the swell at an exhilarating speed, yet required immense dexterity from the crew to keep the sail trimmed and manage the switch of the mainsail from one side to the other, accompanied by the raising and lifting of the great iron  ’leeboards’ – which serve as keels to prevent the flat bottomed barge capsizing while sailing upwind.

Thus, a routine was quickly established whenever David Pollock turned the vessel into the wind, calling “Ready about!” – the instruction to wind up the leeward leeboard and switch the mainsail from one side to the other. As soon as this was accomplished, David yelled “Let draw!” - the order to drop the leeboard on the opposite side and release the foresail. This ritual demanded a furious hauling of ropes and winding of the windlass, accompanied by the loud clanging of the iron tether as it slid along a pole that traversed the deck, known as the ‘horse.’ Meanwhile, wary passengers ducked their heads as the sail swung from one side to the other, accompanied by the sudden tilting of the entire deck in the reverse direction.

Before long, we were weaving our course among other Sailing Barges, running in parallel along the waves and slowly edging forward of our rivals, while in front of us some larger vessels were already pulling ahead in the strong wind. Running downwind, these vessels gained an advantage of speed and once we passed the buoy at the turning point of the five hour race, we gained the counter-advantage of manoeuvrability, tacking upwind. Yet by then it was too late to overtake those ahead, but it did not stop David and his crew working tirelessly as we zig-zagged back through the afternoon towards the Swale Estuary, taking sustenance of fruit cake and permitting distraction only from a dozen seals basking upon a sand bank.

Observing these historic vessels in action, and witnessing the combination of skill and physical exertion of a crew of more than eight, left me wondering at those men who once worked upon them, sailing with just a skipper, a mate and a boy.

On two past occasions when less wind prevailed, David and Repertor won the Swale Match, yet no-one was disappointed, making their way up Faversham Creek to the prize-giving on Saturday night at The Shipwrights’ Arms. With more matches to come before the end of the season, and after a strong performance in the Swale match, David Pollock and the crew of Repertor still had the opportunity of winning the Barge Championship – though, after my day on board, I can assure you that the joy of sailing such a majestic vessel was more than reward enough.

David Pollock, Skipper of Sailing Barge Repertor

Lady of the Lea, a smaller river barge designed for a tributary

Dennis Pennell - “I worked on the barges when I was still a boy….”

Brian Weaver - “I’m seventy-five and I started at nine, in the days when the Thames Barges still worked out of Faversham.”

Doug Powell - “I’ve been a sailor since I was thirteen.”

Return to Oare Creek

The day ended with prize-giving at The Shipwrights’ Arms, Faversham

Click here if you would like to take a trip on Thames Sailing Barge ‘Repertor’

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On The Thames Sailing Barge Repertor

For a second summer, Robson Cezar, widely known as King of the Bottletops has been artist-in-residence at Spitalfields City Farm, and so Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I went along to see what he has been up to this year.

In recent weeks, visitors of all ages to the farm have been sorting bottle caps collected from the pubs of Spitalfields into all their separate colours, which Robson has supplemented by using a stick with a magnet on the end to harvest those left behind by the weekend revellers in Allen Gardens.

This summer, Robson has made a large house like those in Spitalfields, using six thousand bottle caps, which has been installed on the fence overlooking the children’s play area in Allen Gardens and twenty-six panels comprising the letters of the alphabet. All these works are currently on display at the farm and you are encouraged to make a visit and take a look for yourself.

Installing the bottletop house at the far

A Spitalfields house made of six thousand bottletops

The playground on Allen Gardens with the bottle top house in the background

Robson Cezar’s studio at the farm

Collecting discarded bottletops with  a magnetic stick on Allen Gardens

Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie

Spitalfields City Farm, Buxton St, E1 5AR

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King of the Bottletops at Spitalfields City Farm, 2014

Yesterday, I returned to visit my pal Roy Wild from Hoxton who formerly worked in the Bishopsgate Good Yard and he told me about his days hopping in Kent, more than half a century ago

There is Roy on the right with his left hand stuck in his pocket, to indicate the appropriate air of nonchalance befitting a street-wise man of the world of around twelve years old, on a hopping expedition with his family from Hoxton.

Roy went hop picking each year with this relations until he reached the age of eighteen and, at this season, he always recalls his days in Kent. Still in touch with many of those who were there with him in the hop fields in the fifties, Roy was more than happy to get out his photographs and settle down with a cup of tea with a drop of whisky in it, and tell me all about it.

“I first went hopping with my family in 1948 when I was ten or eleven. We went to Selling near Faversham in Kent. The fields were owned by Alan Bruce Neame of Shepherd Neame, and he would employ people to pick the hops which he sold to breweries. We all lined up on the last day and he would pay each of us in person.

Some Londoners went by train from London Bridge St, all waiting on the station and carrying all their stuff with them. We were very fortunate, dad’s brother Ernie, he had an asphalt company and had an open backed lorry, for which he made a frame for a rain canopy, and we all went down to hopping together – our family, Ernie’s family, also Renee’s sister Mary and her family. Ernie would drive down to Hoxton and pick us up at Northport St, with all our bits and pieces, our bags and suitcases with bed linen and that type of thing, and away we’d all go down to Faversham. We’d go at the weekend, so we could spend a day unpacking and be ready to start picking on Monday.

There was us hop pickers from London but Neame would also employ ‘home-dwellers,’ these were Kentish people. The accommodation they lived in was far superior to what we were subjected to. We were given no more than Nissen huts, square huts made of corrugated iron with a door and that was about all, no windows. It was very, very primitive. We washed in a bowl of water and the toilet was a hole dug in a field. My mother would take old palliasses down with us from Hoxton and they would be stuffed with straw or hay from the barn, and that would our mattresses. The beds were made of planks, very basic and supported upon four logs to prop them up off the floor. You’d put the palliasses on top of the planks and the blankets on top of that. The huts were always running alive with creepy-crawlies, so anyone that had a phobia of that wasn’t really suited to hop picking.

There was another room next to it which was half the size, this was our kitchen. My dad would take down an old primus stove for cooking. It was fuelled by paraffin and the more you pumped it up the fiercer the flame, the quicker the cooking. It was only a small thing that sat on a box. The alternative to that was cooking outside. The farmer would provide bundles of twigs known as ‘faggots,’ to fuel the fire and we would rig up a few bricks with a grill where we’d put the kettle and a frying pan. They’d literally get pot-black in the smoke.

We usually went from three weeks to a month hop picking, sometimes the whole of September, and you could stay on for fruit picking. When we first started, we picked into a big long troughs of sacking hanging down inside a wooden frame. They were replaced by six bushel baskets. The tally man would come round with a cart to collect the six bushel baskets and mark your card with how much you had picked, before carrying the hops away to the oasthouses for drying.

At the time, we were paid one shilling and sixpence a bushel. You’d pick into a bushel basket while you were sitting with it between your legs and when it was full, you’d walk over to the six bushel basket and tip it in. My dad was a fast picker, he’d say ‘Come on Roy, do it a bit quicker!’ All your fingers got stained black by the the hops, we called it ‘hoppy hands.’

If you had children with you, they would mess about. Their parents would be rebuking them and telling them to get picking because the more you picked, the more you earned. Some people could get hold of a bine, pull the leaves off and, in one sweep, take all the hops off into the basket. Other people, to bulk up their baskets would put all kinds of things in there. they would put the bines at the bottom of the six bushel basket and nobody would know, but if you got caught then you was in trouble. My dad showed me how to fill a six bushel basket up to the five bushel level and then put your arms down inside to lift up the hops to the top just before the tally man came round.

The adults were dedicated pickers because you had to buy food all the time and being there could cost more money than you made. There was a little store near us called ‘Clinges’ and  further up, just past the graveyard, was another store which was more modern called ‘Blythes’, and next door to that was a pub called the ‘White Swan’ and that was the release for all the hop pickers. They all used to go there on Saturday and Sunday nights and there’d be sing-songs and dancing, before going back to work on Monday morning. It was the only enjoyment you had down there, except – if you didn’t go up to the pub – you’d get all the familes sitting round of a weekend and reminiscing and singing songs, round a big open fire made up of the faggots

We worked from nine o’clock until about four, Monday to Friday. The owner of the hop fields employed guys to work for him who were called ‘Pole Pullers,’ they had big long poles with a sharp knife on the end and when you pulled a bine, if it didn’t come down, you’d call out for a pole puller and with his big long pole he’d cut the top of it and the rest if it would fall down. When it was nearing four o’clock, they’d call out ‘Pull no more bines!’ which was what all the kids were waiting for because by this time they’d all had just about enough. A hop field can be one muddy place and if you’re in among all that with wellingtons on it can get pretty sticky.  If it was ready to rain, the pole pullers would also go round and call ‘Pull no more bines.’ Nobody was expected to work outside in the rain. We dreaded the rain but we welcomed the pole pullers when they called out, because that was the day’s work done until the following morning.

We looked forward to going hop picking because it was the chance of an adventure in the country. It was just after the war and we’d had it rough in Hoxton. I was born in 1937 and I’d grown up through the war, and we still had ration books for a long time afterwards. I was a young man in the fabulous fifties and the swinging sixties. In the fifties, we had American music and Elvis Presley, and in the sixties the Beatles and British music. Hop picking was being mechanised, they had invented machines that could do it. So we grew away from it, and young men and young women had better things to do with their time.”

Roy stands in the centre of this family group

Renee Wild and Rosie Wild

Picking into a six bushel basket

Roy’s father Andy Wild rides in the cart with his brother Ernie

Roy’s grandfather Andrew Wild is on the far left of this photo

Roy is on the far right of this group

Roy sits in the left in the front of this picture

Rosie, Mary & Renee

Roy’s father Andy Wild with Roy’s mother Rosie at the washing up and Pearl

Roy’s mother, Rosie Wild

Renee, Mary & Pearl

Roy’s father Andy stands on the left and his Uncle Ernie on the right

Roy

Roy (with Trixie) and Tony sit beside their mother Rosie

Roy’s mother and father with his younger brother Tony

Roy stands on the right of this group of his pals

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Roy Wild, Van Boy & Driver

Courtesy of Jemmy Catnach of Catnach Press, it is my pleasure to publish this early nineteenth century shaggy dog tale of the devoted Mother Hubbard – believed to be by Sarah Catherine Martin

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The Dogs Of Old London

Libby Hall, Collector of Dog Photography

The Dogs of Spitalfields

The Dogs of Spitalfields in Spring

The Dogs of Spitalfields in Winter

Spitalfields Life contributing photographer, Lucinda Douglas-Menzies became fascinated by the Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club while out walking in the park. Over successive Sundays, her interest grew as she went back to watch the regattas, meet the members and learn the story of the oldest model boat club in the world, founded in 1904. Her photographic essay records the life of this society of gentle enthusiasts, many of whom have been making and racing boats on this lake for generations, updating the designs and means of propulsion for their intricate craft in accordance with the evolution of maritime vessels over more than a century. Starting on Easter Sunday, the club holds as many as seventeen regattas annually.

“Meet you at ten o’clock Sunday morning at the boating lake!” was the eager response of Norman Lara, the chairman, when Lucinda rang to enquire about his club. “On the morning I arrived, a group of about a dozen model boat enthusiasts were already settled in chairs by the water’s edge with a variety of handmade boats on display.” explained Lucinda, who was treated to a tour of the clubhouse by Norman. “We are very lucky, one of the few clubs to have this. Tower Hamlets are very good to us, they keep the weeds down in the lake and last year we were given a loo.” he said, adding dryly, “It only took a hundred years to get one.”

Meanwhile, the members had pulled on their waders and were preparing their vessels at the water’s edge, before launching them onto the sparkling lake. Here Norman introduced Lucinda to Keith Reynolds, the club secretary, who outlined the specific classes of model boat racing with the precision of an authority, “There are five categories of “straight running” boats. These include functional, scale boats (fishing boats, cabin cruisers, etc), scale ships (warships, cruise boats, liners,merchant ships, liners, merchant ships – boats on which you could sustain life for more than seven days), metre boats (with strict rules of engine size and length) and – we had to create a special category for this one – called “the wedge,” basically a boat made of three pieces of wood with no keel, ideal for children to start on.” In confirmation of this, as Lucinda looked around, she saw children accompanied by their parents and grandparents, each generation with their boats of varying sophistication and period design, according to their owners’ experience and age.

Readers of Model Engineering Magazine were informed in 1907 that “the Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club were performing on a Saturday afternoon before an enormous public of small boys who asked, ‘What’s it go by mister?’” It is a question that passersby still ask today, now that additional racing classes have been introduced for radio controlled boats with petrol engines and even hydroplanes.

“We have around sixty members,” continued Keith enthusiastically, “but we could with some more, as a lot don’t sail their boats any longer, they just enjoy turning up for a chat. It’s quiet today, but you should come back next Sunday to our steam rally when the bank will be thick with owners who bring their boats from all over. Some are so big they run on lawn mower engines!”

It was an invitation that Lucinda could not resist and she was rewarded with a spectacle revealing more of the finer points of model boat racing. She discovered that “straight running,” which Keith had referred to, is when one person launches a boat with a fixed rudder along a course (usually sixty yards long) where another waits at the scoring gates to catch the vessel. The closer to a straight course your boat can follow, the more points you win, defined by a series of gates around a central white gate, which scores a bull’s-eye of ten points if you can sail your boat through it. On either side of the white gate are red, yellow and orange gates each with a diminishing score, because the point of the competition is to discover whose boat can follow the truest course.

Witnessing this contest, Lucinda realised that – just like still water concealing deep currents – as well as having extraordinary patience to construct these beautiful working models, the members of the boat club also possess fiercely competitive natures. This is the paradox of sailing model boats, which appears such a lyrical pastime undertaken in the peace and quiet of the boating lake, yet when so much investment of work and ingenuity is at stake (not to mention hierarchies of  individual experience and different generations in competition), it can easily transform into a drama that is as intense as any sport has to offer.

Lucinda’s photographs capture this subtle theatre adroitly, of a social group with a shared purpose and similar concerns, both mutually supportive and mutually competitive, who all share a love of the magic of launching their boats upon the lake on Sundays in Summer. It is an activity that conjures a relaxed atmosphere – as, for over a century, walkers have paused at the lakeside to chat in the sunshine, watching as boats are put through their paces on the water and scrutinising the detail of vessels laid upon the shore, before continuing on their way.

Photographs copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies

Leonard Maloney

“I’ve spent my whole working life here in the arches,” Leonard Maloney admitted to me, when Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I went to visit him at JC Motors in Haggerston which specialises in repair of Volkswagen cars and vans. Len spoke placidly, shook our hands in welcome and made relaxed eye contact when we arrived at his garage, and I was immediately aware how tidy and ordered the place was.

A peaceful atmosphere of mutual respect and concentration prevailed – a white camper van was up in the air undergoing maintenance beneath and the boot of a red sports car was open while repair was undertaken. Len & I sat on two car seats at the rear of the arch to chat while Sarah photographed the motor engineers at work.

JC Motors has been serving customers for eight years from this location and earned a reputation in the neighbourhood for honest pricing and reliability, and many of the mechanics are local people who have joined through placements and schemes. Everything might appear as it should be, yet there is an air of poignancy since Len – in common with the other businesses under the railways arches – is being threatened with a three hundred per cent rent increase by Transport for London who are the landlords.

“Everything is becoming coffee bars around here now,” Len informed me in regret “and it seems our job has become seen as ‘dirty’ and we’re no longer wanted any more now that it’s become posh.”

“My dad had an old Austin Cambridge that he used to repair at weekends and that gave me a taste for this work. I’ve always loved taking things apart and putting them back together, and the smell of diesel oil has been attractive to me for as long as I can remember.

In 1981, I was sent on a day release from Danesford School to Hackney College where I met Barry Carlisle who specialised in repairing minis, and in the evenings I came to work for him in an arch here in Haggerston. Then Joe Chee came long and saw me working on a Volkswagen Camper van and he said, ‘If ever you need a job, come and see me.’

At first when I left school, I went to work for Barry but he had an accident and lost an eye, so then I had to go back to Joe Chee and we began working together in 1982. He was foreman at a Volkswagen garage in St John’s Wood. We made a great team and I learnt a lot from him. We started a body shop off the Kingsland Rd and a shop selling Volkswagen parts. That was fantastic and it carried on until 1999. He did the paperwork and sold the parts and I ran the bodyshop, and we collected lots of customers and took on three apprentices. But eventually Joe Chee got ill and passed away and I couldn’t run the whole business, so I closed the shop and continued with the garage.

I began taking on local young people through the Inspire Hackney scheme and now my son Miles is working with me, he’s twenty-one. Everyone has their job to do and they know where the parts are and I have taught them what to do. Some customers bring their cars in and just tell me to repair whatever needs doing, but I also get single mums who don’t have a lot of money and I can just repair what is necessary to keep the car safe. I’ve had mums bring in their kids in prams and then the kids come back to me to ask advice when the time comes to get their first car.”

Click here to sign the petition to Transport for London to support  J C Motors & the other small businesses under the railway arches

The team at J C Motors

Joe Chee is commemorated in the name of the company ‘JC Motors’, followed by Leonard’s initials

Miles Maloney

Len’s own beetle that he hopes to restore one day

Mr Bramble, Motor Engineer

Mr Singh, Motor Engineer

Hakeem Saunders - “I’ve been here since I was thirteen”

Adnan Leal

Leonard & his son Miles

Leonard Maloney

Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie

J C Motors LDM, 332 Stean St, Haggerston, E8 4ED

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At Three Colts Lane

At Mansell St Garage

Is your purse or wallet like mine, bulging with old trade cards? Do you always take a card from people handing them out in the street, just to be friendly? Do you pick up interesting cards in idle moments, intending to look at them later, and find them months afterwards in your pocket and wonder how they got there? So it has been for over three hundred years in London, since the beginning of the seventeenth century when trade cards began to be produced as the first advertising. Here is a selection of cards you might find, rummaging through a drawer in the eighteenth century.

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

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The Signs of Old London

I spent my week away from Spitalfields Life working on the Cries of London book but – before summer ends – I decided to take advantage of the sunny weather yesterday with a trip to Sandwich

“There’s always something going on in Sandwich,” I was reliably informed by the guide who welcomed me to an old stone church, and the evidence was all around us in this ancient borough which has acquired so many layers of history over the last thousand years.

If you prefer your architecture irregular in form and mellow with age, this is your place – for Sandwich is one of England’s least-altered medieval towns. Yet the appeal lies not in how it has been preserved but in how it has changed, since every building has been melded over time to suit the evolving needs of its occupants, and the charismatic blend of timber with stonework and stonework with brickwork is sublime.

As I wandered through the quiet streets, I thought about the paradoxical nature of the guide’s comment since Sandwich unquestionably defines the notion of ‘sleepy town,’ even if that afternoon there was a concert in the grounds of the Lutyens house by the river and a fete at the quay. Yet in a more profound sense this has been a location of ceaseless activity since Roman times.

Contrary to popular opinion, ‘Sandwich’ means ‘a settlement built on the sand.’ First recorded in the seventh century, a thriving port and fishing industry grew up here on a sandbank in the days when the river was wider than it is today and the sea came right up to the town. A defensive wall with gates was built around this wealthy trading post and storm tides sometimes surrounded Sandwich, isolating it from the land. One of the pre-eminent ‘Cinque Ports,’ the fleet here offered nautical military service to the Crown in return for trading without taxation. Thus merchants from Venice brought their goods direct to Sandwich and even the King came to buy exotic luxury imports.

“You can easily get lost in Sandwich,” I was cautioned unexpectedly by the attendant at the Museum as I bought my copy of the Civic guide to study the history. It was an unlikely observation that the attendant uttered, since Sandwich is a tiny place, but let me confirm that you can quickly lose your sense of direction, strolling in the maze of small streets and lanes with names like Holy Ghost Alley, Three Kings Yard and Love Lane. An afternoon can fly away once you begin to study the glorious detail and rich idiosyncrasy of eight hundred years of vernacular architecture that is manifest to behold in Sandwich.

If your imagination is set on fire by winding streets of crooked old houses and ancient worn churches paved with medieval tiles and roofed with spectacular wooden vaults, then Sandwich is the destination for you. You really can lose yourself in it and there is always something going on.

St Peter’s Church

The King’s Lodging

Demon of 1592 on the corner of the Kings Arms

St Mary’s Church

St Mary’s Church

Tower of St Mary’s Church

Mermaid at the corner of Delf St

January 1601

The Delf stream was channelled to bring freshwater to Sandwich in the thirteenth century

Horse Pond Sluice

St Clement’s Church has an eleventh  century Norman tower

In St Clement’s Church

Fisher Gate with the old Customs House on the right

Fourteenth century Fisher Gate

You may like to read about my previous trips beyond Spitalfields at this time of year

At Herne Bay, 2014

A Walk from Shoeburyness to Chalkwell, 2013

A Walk Along the Ridgeway, 2012

At Walton on the Naze, 2011

At Canvey Island, 2010

At Broadstairs, 2009

I paid a visit to Pepys’ Library in Cambridge recently as research for my Cries of London book

You cross the bridge over the River Cam in Cambridge – the one from which the city takes it name – and there is Magdalene College, with a magnificent border of dahlias at this time of year but otherwise not significantly different from when Pepys was an undergraduate there.

Samuel Pepys bequeathed his library of more than three thousand books to his college, where they were installed upon the death of his nephew and heir in 1724 and where they are preserved today. Pepys had them all bound, catalogued according to his own system and stored in order of size in twelve cases manufactured to his design in the workshops at Chatham dockyard. This library can be seen as a natural complement to Pepys’ personal writing – gathering together essential cultural texts and images of the physical world, just as his journal recorded salient detail of his experience of daily life.

Although one volume of Pepys’ diary is open on display in a glass case, revealing the meticulous shorthand he used to write his journal, the rest are not conspicuous within the library. I felt foolish, once I had searched the shelves for the other volumes in vain, so I had no choice but to ask the librarian where they were since I could not visit Pepys’ Library without casting my eyes upon the most famous diaries of all time.

Magnanimously, the librarian led me to one of the cases and directed me to look at the second run of books, set behind those at the front of the shelf. There, at the back, were five modest volumes labelled simply ‘Journal’ and each numbered with a Roman numeral on the spine. It was breathtaking that these works were placed there with such discretion and bound modestly. In setting up his legacy and including the diaries, Pepys must have known that it was only a matter of time before someone read them. Yet it was only in the early nineteenth century that these journals were transcribed, using his shorthand manual in the collection, and the phenomenon of ‘Pepys Diary’ as we know it came into existence.

The earliest collection of Cries of London I have found is that belonging to Samuel Pepys and they are also kept in his library. Driven by his acquisitive nature and infinite curiosity about life, Pepys amassed more than ten thousand engravings and eighteen hundred printed ballads, including several sets of Cries. Alongside those published in his own day, Pepys included those of a generation before, which are among the earliest surviving examples – a significant juxtaposition suggesting he recognised the value of these prints as documents of social history.

In two large albums entitled ‘London & Westminster,’ Pepys arranged his architectural and historical prints of these locations, including a section labelled ‘Cryes consisting of Several Setts thereof, Antient & Moderne: with the differ Stiles us’d therein by the Cryers.’ In these folios, three series of Cries were pasted on successive pages, placing them there as an integral element of the identity of the city as much as the lofty monuments of brick and stone.

Ordered in chronological sequence of their publication, these three series illustrate the evolution of the form of the Cries during the seventeenth century, from a single sheet to a chapbook to a set of individual prints. The earliest set in Pepys’ collection, believed to date from the beginning of the seventeenth century, is described thus ‘A very antient Sett thereof, in Wood, with the Words then used by the Cryers.’

Twenty-four alternating male and female Criers inhabit niches in four storeys of arcades, displaying wares to indicate their identity like medieval saints parading upon an altarpiece. Suggesting a procession through time, they are introduced by the Cryer at daybreak and interrupted by the Bellman and the Watchman, just as the Criers each had their own place within the rhythm of the passing hours.

This is followed on the next page with a set of thirty-two engravings, believed to date from around 1640, described by Pepys as “A later Sett, in Wood – with the Words also then in use.” By comparison with the woodcuts representing stereotypical figures of Criers, these have more self-possession – though close examination reveals that the same models recur, posing in a variety of guises as different street vendors. Yet in spite of these enacted tableaux, there exists a convincing presence of personalities among these Criers – glancing around in circumspection or meeting our gaze with phlegmatic stoicism.

These two anonymous sets from the early and mid-seventeenth century pasted across double spreads are followed by pages of individual prints by Marcellus Laroon. On a more ambitious scale than had been attempted before, they permitted sophisticated use of composition and greater detail in costume by granting each subject their own sheet, thereby elevating the status of the prints as worthy of separate frames.

Laroon was employed as a costume painter in the studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller, who painted Samuel Pepys’ portrait in 1689 which perhaps has drapery by Laroon. Certainly, Pepys acquired drawings by Laroon of the Lord Mayor’s Show and other subjects which were collected into his albums alongside the engravings of Laroon’s Cries from 1687, that were ‘moderne’ for Pepys to the degree that he could caption eighteen of them with the names of the subjects.

Thus, turning the large folio pages of  ’London & Westminster’ invites comparison – and allowed Samuel Pepys to contrast those ‘antient’ prints from his parents’ generation with those of his youth and adulthood, contemplating the hawkers that populated the streets of the city before he was born, distinguishing the differences in their clothing and wares, and wondering at how London had changed in his time.

Pepys’ Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge

‘A very antient Sett thereof, in Wood, with the Words then used by the Cryers’

“A later Sett, in Wood – with the Words also then in use”

Drawn by Marcellus Laroon and published by Pierce Tempest, 1687

Accompanying my book of Cries of London published on 12th November, Bishopsgate Institute is staging a festival around the culture and politics of markets and street trading, and Spitalfields Music is opening its Winter Festival with a concert of Cries of London by Fretwork on 4th December at Shoreditch Church.

I still need a couple more investors for the book and you can learn more here

Who Can Help Me Publish An Illustrated History Of The Cries Of London ?

Could this be the new Truman’s Brewery?

Today I open the next chapter in the story of Norton Folgate by introducing the Spitalfields Trust‘s scheme for renewal of this overlooked ancient quarter of London townscape, developed in collaboration with architect John Burrell of Burrell Foley Fisher. The principle behind this scheme has been to find how Norton Folgate can best serve the people of the East End in terms of employment and housing.

Unlike British Land’s proposal which would entail demolition of more than 70% of the fabric of the site within a Conservation Area, the Spitalfields Trust’s scheme retains more than 95% of the buildings. These would be subject only to light-touch refurbishment with sympathetic new infill matching the scale and materials of the historic structures.

The viability of this scheme is based upon the availability of more than forty separate buildings providing genuinely sustainable and affordable premises, offering possibilities for a significant volume of residential accommodation as well as suiting the requirements of traditional and new industries.

Consultations with local businesses have drawn serious interest from tech industry leaders Second Home and Red Monk, and long-established East End companies, Baddeley Brothers, specialist printers operating at the City fringe since 1859, and Truman’s Beer, first established in Spitalfields in 1666. For Truman’s, the site has the potential to offer a permanent home for their brewery with a tap room bar and a museum of the company’s history, just a couple of hundred yards from where they started in Brick Lane three hundred and fifty years ago. Meanwhile, Keith Evans of Baker St Productions who created the Clerkenwell Workshops has offered to deliver a recording studio and ten live/work units.

Working in partnership with Newlon social housing association, the Spitalfields Trust’s scheme provides fifty-seven affordable residential units, as opposed to only eleven in British Land’s proposal. For the open market, there would be a further fifty-seven residential units as well as the ten live/work units.

The Spitalfields Trust’s scheme is viable and deliverable. It has been submitted to Tower Hamlets Council as a pre-planning application and a copy was sent to the Mayor of London yesterday. As you know, Tower Hamlets Strategic Development Committee unanimously rejected British Land’s scheme for Norton Folgate in July and this decision was ratified by the Council in August.

This week, the Council’s decision will be passed to the Mayor of London and we need your help urgently to ensure that he does not interfere in the democratic process by intervening on behalf of the developers, as he did with the London Fruit & Wool Exchange which is currently being demolished. Please write to Boris Johnson and ask him to show respect to the people of the East End by upholding the decision of the elected councillors in Tower Hamlets.

This is a simple guide to how to write to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, asking him to show respect to the people of the East End by upholding the decision of Tower Hamlets Council and not intervening on behalf of British Land.

You can write by email mayor@london.gov.uk (please also provide your postal address in the email) or by post to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London, SE1 2AA

Please quote application numbers PA/14/03548 & PA/14/03618 and write in your own words giving your own reasons why you think Boris Johnson should not interfere with Norton Folgate, but you might like to consider including the following points.

1. The decision to reject British Land’s application was made democratically by Tower Hamlets Strategic Development Committee with 4 votes against, 4 abstentions and o votes in favour.  This is what the people of East London want.

2. There were more than 550 letters of objection but only 7 in favour.

3. The site is entirely within the Elder St Conservation Area which is protected by the Council’s own Conservation Policy, recommending repair of the buildings – not wholesale demolition as proposed by British Land.

4. The Spitalfields Trust has produced a viable alternative scheme which addresses local housing and employment needs, and preserves the heritage assets for future generations.

Overview of Spitalfields Trust’s Scheme (Click to enlarge)

Blossom St elevation (Click to enlarge)

Norton Folgate elevation (Click to enlarge)

Elder St elevation (Click to enlarge)

Folgate St elevation (Click to enlarge)

John Burrell introduces the Spitalfields Trust’s Scheme

WHAT IT DOES:

This alternative proposal is conceived to fit within the Council’s policies for the Elder St Conservation Area and proposes a scale that reflects its history, and the modest form and scale of the existing four and five storey buildings of Norton Folgate.

It retains 92% of the fabric of the buildings of the designated Conservation Area as an alternative to British Land retaining only 29%.

It demolishes just three buildings and this is confined to those that are unquestionably of poor quality or incomplete.

It has five modest-scale new buildings.

It has thirteen one-or-two storey additions to existing buildings and these are set back at roof level to maintain the scale, height and form of the existing streets.

It is based on maintaining the integrity and identity of over forty buildings, most of which were once under separate ownership and control, which formerly accommodated many different uses that made up the character of Norton Folgate.

It maintains party wall lines.

It maintains an active on-street presence and activity from over seventy separate front doors and entrances at pavement level.

It repairs, restores, and conserves existing facades, their fittings and details.

It retains the existing patina of the buildings without over-restoration and without the removal or re-location of original detail and materials.

It keeps in place the original street surfaces, street furniture, kerbstones, small details, signs, lamps, bollards etc – some of which have Listed Building status.

It opens up existing historic yards and routes through the site e.g. from Commercial St to Blossom St, through the former stable yard.

It establishes the workplaces, homes and the market character of these streets, retaining their essential nineteenth century character, reflecting Norton Folgate as an area that already has historic architectural coherence.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO:

It is not reliant on Norton Folgate having to be organised as a single development site, necessitating the complete vacation – this alternative scheme can be commenced immediately on a building-by-building basis.

It is does not use architectural pastiche to disguise new buildings.

It does not include merely the retention of façades as a ‘masonry veneer’ fronting-up new floor plates and continuous floor plates behind.

It is not a scheme that creates retro facades as a mask to huge blocks untypical of the grain and scale of Spitalfields.

It does not require the creation of private pedestrian routes under new buildings to replace already existing historic routes through the site.

It will not require a comprehensive level-by-level demolition plan for the entire site.

It does not require a “master plan.”

It does not require a surfeit of reports to justify the destruction and removal of evidence of the history of the site.

SUMMARY

The Spitalfields Trust’s scheme recognizes that Norton Folgate is a vital part of Spitalfields, the loss of which will destroy the character of the Conservation Area.

Although buildings have been emptied in order to realise the developer’s objectives, we have found from our consultations with those wishing to return to the area that there is a massive desire and demand to occupy the buildings –  to live, to work and to create new places, and return Norton Folgate to a thriving, vital locality.

Norton Folgate exists already and has no need of a demolition master plan.

Norton Folgate as it is today

British Land want to remove over 70% of the fabric on their site in the Elder St Conservation Area

British Land want to increase the mass of the buildings by more than 50%

The Spitalfields Trust’s proposal

Follow the Campaign at facebook/savenortonfolgate

Follow Spitalfields Trust on twitter @SpitalfieldsT

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Joining Hands to Save Norton Folgate

Dan Cruickshank in Norton Folgate

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Stories of Norton Folgate

Save Norton Folgate

Islington Council is unveiling a plaque for my friend & mentor, the novelist Nina Bawden, at midday on Friday 11th September, at her former home, 22 Noel Rd, N1, and you are very welcome to attend

Nina Bawden, 2011

In recent years, a recurring highlight in my existence had been the opportunity to walk from Spitalfields through Hoxton and along the canal path up to Islington to enjoy a light lunch with novelist Nina Bawden, who lived in an old terrace backing onto the canal and whom I considered it a great honour to count as my friend.

I first met Nina when I took my copy of “Carrie’s War” along to a bookshop and queued up with all the hundreds of other children to have it signed by the famous author. She appeared to my child’s eyes as the incarnation of adult grace and authoritative literary intellect, and it is an opinion that I have had no reason to qualify, except to say that my estimation of Nina grew as I came to know her.

Years after that book signing, Kaye Webb, Nina’s editor who had encouraged my own nascent efforts at writing, rang me up at six-thirty one evening to say she had just remembered Nina and her husband Austen Kark were coming to dinner that very night and she had nothing to give them. At this time Kaye was over eighty and housebound, so I sprinted through the supermarket to arrive breathless at Kaye’s flat beside the canal in Little Venice by seven-thirty – and when Nina and Austen arrived at eight, dinner was in the oven.

They were an impressive couple, Austen (who was Head of the BBC World Service) handsome in a well-tailored suit and Nina, a classically beautiful woman, stylish in a Jean Muir dress. I regret that I cannot recall more of the evening, but I was working so hard to conceal my anxiety over the hasty cuisine that I was completely overawed. Naturally, in such sympathetic company, it all passed off smoothly and I only revealed the whole truth to Nina more than twenty years later after Kaye and Austen had both died. Given this unlikely background to our friendship, it was my great pleasure to get to know Nina a little better once we became “neighbours” on this side of London.

Born in East London in 1925, Nina was evacuated during the blitz and then became amongst the first of her post-war generation to go up to Oxford. At Somerville College, she had the temerity to attempt to persuade fellow undergraduate Margaret Thatcher (Margaret Roberts as she was then) to join the Labour Party, that enshrined the spirit of egalitarianism which defined those years. Even then, young Margaret displayed the hard-nosed pragmatism which became her trademark, declaring that she joined the Conservatives because they were less fashionable and consequently, with less competition, she would have a better chance of making it into parliament.

The catalogue of Nina’s literary achievement, which stretches from the early fifties into the new century, consists of over forty novels, twenty-three for adults and nineteen for children. A canon that is almost unparalleled among her contemporaries and that, in its phenomenal social range and variety, can be read as an account of the transformation brought about by the idealistic post-war culture of the Welfare State, and of its short-comings too.

Nina met Austen, the love of her life, by chance on the top of a bus in 1953 when they were both in their twenties and married to other people. They each divorced to remarry, finding happiness together in a marriage that lasted until Austen’s death in 2002. At first,they created a family home in Chertsey, moving in 1979 to Islington, when it was still an unfashionable place to live. Although the terrace where she lived is now considered rather grand, Nina told me she understood they were originally built for the servants and mistresses of those on the better side of Islington.

Nina was someone who instinctively knew how to live, and through her persistent application to the art of writing novels and in her family life with Austen and their children, she won great happiness and fulfillment. I know this because I sensed it in her bright spirit and powerfully magnanimity, but equally I knew that her life was touched with grief and tragedy in ways that gave her innate warmth and generosity an exceptional poignancy. When Nina’s 1972 novel “The Birds on the Trees,” was shortlisted for the lost Booker prize in 2010, she re-read it and recalled it had been inspired by the suicide of her son Nicky, “When bad things happen, you absorb them into yourself and make use of them in novels.” she said soberly, “In the case of Austen, I had a fight with the railways.”

On 10th May 2002, Nina and Austen boarded a train at Kings Cross to got to Cambridge for a friend’s birthday party. They never arrived. The train derailed at over one hundred miles an hour and Nina’s carriage detached itself, rolling perpendicular to the direction of travel and entering Potters Bar station to straddle the platforms horizontally. Austen was killed instantly and Nina was cut from the wreckage at the point of death, with every bone in her body broken. In total, seven people died and more than seventy were injured that day.

After multiple surgeries and, defying the predictions of her doctors, Nina stood up again through sheer willpower, walked again and returned to live in the home that she had shared with Austen. In grief at the loss of Austen and no longer with his emotional support, Nina found herself exposed in a brutally politicised new world, “I suppose I am lucky to have lived so long believing that most men are for the most part honourable. And lucky to have taken a profession in which owning up and telling the truth is rarely a financial disadvantage” she wrote. Nothing in her experience prepared her for the corporate executives of the privatised rail companies who refused to admit liability or even apologise in case their share price went down. It was apparent at once that the crash was caused by poorly maintained points as the maintenance company had cut corners to increase profitability at the expense of safety, but they denied it to the end.

Refused legal aid by a government who for their own reasons deemed the case of the survivors seeking to establish liability as “not in the public interest,” it was only when Nina stepped forward to lead the fight herself, setting out to take the rail companies to the High Court personally, that they finally admitted liability. If Nina had lost her case, she risked forfeiting her home to pay legal costs. But after losing so much, inspired by her love for Austen, Nina was determined to see it through and, in doing so, she won compensation for all the survivors.

You can read Nina’s own account of this experience in “Dear Austen,” a series of letters that she wrote to her dead husband to explain what happened. “When we bought tickets for this railway journey we had expected a safe arrival, not an earthquake smashing lives into pieces,” wrote Nina to Austen,“I dislike the word ‘victim’. I dislike being told that I ‘lost’ my husband – as if I had idly abandoned you by the side of the railway track like a pair of unwanted old shoes. You were killed. I didn’t lose you. And I am not a victim, I am an angry survivor.”

Sometimes extraordinary events can reveal extraordinary qualities in human beings and Nina Bawden proved herself to be truly extraordinary, not only as a top class novelist but also as a woman with moral courage who risked everything to stand up for justice. It is one thing to write as a humanitarian, but is another to fight for your beliefs when you are at your most vulnerable – this was the moment when Nina transformed from writer to protagonist, and became a heroine in the process. Nina may not have looked like an obvious heroine because she was so fragile and retiring, but her strength was on the inside.

Whenever I visited Nina, my sanity was restored. I walked home to Spitalfields along the canal and the world seemed a richer place as I carried the aura of her gentle presence with me. Concluding our conversation in the study one day, before we went downstairs to enjoy our lunch – on what turned out to be one of my last visits – Nina smiled radiantly to me and said, ” I’ve decided to get on with my novel…” in a line that sounded like a defiant challenge to the universe.

Our final conversation was in March 2012 when, after a silence of many months, Nina rang to offer her congratulations on the publication of my book of Spitalfields Life, and it made me realise that our friendship had travelled a long way since we first met. Now it is with great regret that – unlike Carrie in Nina’s most celebrated book – I must accept I cannot go back. I shall never walk back along the towpath to have lunch with Nina again, though I shall carry her inspiration with me for always.

Nina Bawden (1925-2012) with her husband Austen Kark (1926–2002)

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A Plaque for Nicholas Culpeper

Alongside celebrated artists who drew Cries of London - Marcellus Laroon, Francis Wheatley, William Marshall Craig & John Thomas Smith – there is a parallel tradition of works by anonymous engravers who created sets of Cries for publication in broadsheets and chapbooks that were never going to find their way into frames on the parlour wall.

These anonymous works reveal acute observation and possess a vigorous graphic quality which is just as appealing as their more celebrated counterparts and sometimes more effective in communicating the drama of the street. This series which I came across in the Bishopsgate Institute this week while seeking images for my forthcoming book on the Cries of London is a fine example.

Live Fowls!

Milko!

Knives to Grind!

Earthenware!

Fish!

Dusto!

Old Hats!

Sweet Lavender!

Poultry!

Hair Brooms!

Rabbits!

Flowers, All A-Blowing!

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Accompanying my book of Cries of London published on 12th November, Bishopsgate Institute is staging a festival around the history and politics of markets and street trading, and Spitalfields Music is opening its Winter Festival with a concert of Cries of London by Fretwork on 4th December at Shoreditch Church.

If  you are interested in investing in my book, you can learn more here

Who Can Help Me Publish An Illustrated History Of The Cries Of London ?

Linen and cotton tea towel by Lamont

Even if you do not know the name, it is unlikely you do not know the work. You may have seen his prints being sold off cheap at car boot sales and charity shops, or perhaps your granny had a talcum powder tin with one of his pictures on it, or you have driven past his figures twenty-feet-high on the side of the former Yardley factory in Stratford?

Artist Francis Wheatley created the most celebrated images of Cries of London which are still universally recognised today, although he received little recognition in his lifetime. By accident of fate, his work achieved its greatest success in the twentieth century, gaining widespread popularity and becoming symbolic of the spirit of old London – until it fell out of favour with subsequent generations, devalued by its ubiquity and dismissed as sentimental cliche.

Yet Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London deserve a second look and, once you know the circumstances of their creation, it is not so easy to write them off. They became commonplace in the last century because people loved them, investing personal meaning in these cheaply-distributed images and, by treasuring these mass-produced souvenirs, trinkets and keepsakes, they charged them with a significance that transcends sentiment.

Recognising the curious legacy of Francis Wheatley, I cannot resist collecting all the multiple incarnations of his work which others discard and giving them a home to cherish them on behalf of their former owners, on behalf of the artist himself and on behalf of the street traders of London down the ages who are the dignified subjects of these fascinating pictures. Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London deserve better than being consigned to the dustbin of cultural history.

Francis Wheatley exhibited his series of thirteen oil paintings of Cries of London at the Royal Academy over three years beginning in 1792. Two years earlier, the forty-three year old painter had been elected as an Associate to the Academy by sixteen votes to three, in preference to Thomas Lawrence, the King’s nominee, and – as a consequence – he scarcely secured any further commissions for portraits from the aristocracy. He lost his income entirely and, becoming an Academician, which should have been the crowning glory of his career, was its unravelling. Wheatley was declared insolvent in 1793 and struggled to make a living until his death in 1801 at fifty-four years old in King’s Bench Walk prison, when the Royal Academy paid his funeral expenses.

In the midst of this turmoil, lacking aristocratic sitters, Wheatley created these images of street sellers which, although regarded in his lifetime as of little consequence beside his society portraits, are now the works upon which his reputation rests. Born in Wild Court, Covent Garden, in 1747, Wheatley was ideally qualified to portray these hawkers because he grew up amongst them and their cries, echoing in the streets around the market. The stone pillars of Covent Garden that stand today may be recognised in a couple of these pictures, all of which were located in vicinity of the market.

However, these idealised images are far from social reportage and you may notice a certain similarity between many of the women portrayed in them, for whom it is believed his second wife, Clara Maria Leigh, was the model – herself a painter and exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Look again, and you will also see variants of the same ginger and white terrier occurring in these paintings – this is believed to be Wheatley’s dog. The languorous poise and artful drapery of Wheatley’s figures suggest classical models, as if these hawkers were the urban equivalents of the swains and shepherdesses of the pastoral world. Influenced by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Wheatley had painted agricultural workers at harvest and several of the Cries he depicted are those who came to the city to sell their produce. Although too late save his career, engravings of Wheatley’s Cries were sold at seven shillings and sixpence for a plain set and sixteen shillings coloured, and the fact all thirteen were issued is itself a measure of their popularity.

In 1913, Yardley of London, cosmetic and soap manufacturers, revived Wheatley’s primrose seller by adopting it as their symbol, replacing primroses with sheafs of lavender to illustrate their most popular fragrance, Old English Lavender. Established in 1770, perhaps Yardley sought an image that reflected the era of their origin and the lavender grown for the company in the south east of England. Publishing Wheatley’s image upon countless thousands of soap packets and talcum powder tins was such a popular success that it is still in use upon their packaging over a century later.

The Wheatley revival took flight in 1916 when Players cigarette cards included all of his images in a set of twenty-five Cries of London, reworking Cries by other artists in the Wheatley style to make up the series and following these cards with a second set of twenty-five the year after. Collected by schoolboys in class and soldiers in the trenches, these minor tokens of intangible value became venerated as rare keepsakes. And, throughout the twentieth century, Wheatley’s Cries were reprinted in many guises and upon all kinds of souvenirs and knick-knacks as popular icons of London, representing the collective sense of emotional ownership that people felt for the ancient capital and its wonders.

It was an unlikely choice for Francis Wheatley to paint ‘Cries of London’ at the time he was losing grip of his life – struggling under the pressure of increasing debt – since they cannot have been an obvious commercial proposition. Yet I like to surmise that these fine images celebrate the qualities of the people that Wheatley experienced first-hand in the streets and markets, growing up in Covent Garden, and chose to witness in this affectionate and subtly-political set of pictures of street traders, existing in pertinent contrast to the portraits of aristocratic patrons who had shunned him when he was in need. This is the curious legacy of Francis Wheatley.

Two Bunches a Penny, Primroses, Two Bunches a Penny!

Irish linen tea towel by Lamont

Strawberrys, Scarlet Strawberrys!

Plate by Adams from a dinner service

Fresh Gathered Peas, Young Hastings!

Plate by Adams

Milk Below!

Tea caddy

Sweet China Oranges, Sweet China!

Frean’s ‘London Selection’ biscuit tin

Do you want any matches?

Biscuit tin

New Mackerel, New Mackerel!

Knives, Scissors & Razors to Grind!

De Beauvoir Ford’s 1951 fantasia on a theme by Wheatley configured as a patriotic jigsaw

Turnips & Carrots, ho!

Round & Sound, Five Pence a Pound, Duke Cherries!

Iconic Yardley Old English Lavender talcum powder tin

Old Chairs to Mend!

Yardley Old English Lavender soap

A New Love Song, only Ha’pence a Piece!

Wheatley figures upon the Yardley factory in Stratford (Photograph courtesy of Fin Fahy)

Francis Wheatley RA (1747-1801)

Hot Spiced Gingerbread, Smoking Hot!

Wheatley images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Accompanying my forthcoming book of Cries of London published on 12th November, Bishopsgate Institute is staging a festival around the history and politics of markets and street trading, and Spitalfields Music is opening its Winter Festival with a concert of Cries of London by Fretwork on 4th December at Shoreditch Church.

I still need a few more investors for the Cries and, if  you are interested in investing in my book, you can learn more here

Who Can Help Me Publish An Illustrated History Of The Cries Of London ?

Every time I walk down Mile End Rd, my attention always wanders to Mychael Barratt‘s mural high on the wall beyond Trinity Green Almshouses, conjuring the presiding spirits of this corner of Whitechapel. So I was delighted to visit Mychael’s studio under the railway arches in Bermondsey yesterday and meet the artist in person on the eve of his new exhibition which opens today at For Arts Sake.

“No artist can refuse a mural,” Mychael admitted to me with a grin and a shrug, introducing the unlikely story of the origin of his vast painting, executed over six weeks in the summer of 2011. When lawyers, TV Edwards, who have been established in the East End in the vicinity of the docks since 1929, were refused permission for a large advert on the side of their building, senior partner Anthony Edwards, saw the possibility for a creative solution to the bare wall in Mile End Rd. So, after noticing Mychael Barrett’s work on a hoarding while going over Blackfriars Bridge in a taxi, he gave the artist a call.

Mychael came to London from Canada in the eighties. “I was travelling around Europe and I was only supposed to stay in London for a week, but I never left,” he confessed to me. Yet Mychael’s Huguenot ancestors first came here three hundred years ago as refugees and the history of the capital has proved an enduring source of inspiration for his work. The centrepieces of his new exhibition are A London Map of Days, illustrating 395 events from the history on the city, and Sweet Thames, charting the path of the Thames lined with mud-larking finds.

Mychael at work on the mural in the summer of 2011

The mural was painted by Mychael Barratt, James Glover & Nicholas Middleton

Mychael Barratt at his studio in Bermondsey

Arnold Circus and the Breathless Brass Band, oil painting

Sweet Thames, print  (Please click to enlarge)

A London Map of Days, print (Please click to enlarge)

Images copyright © Mychael Barratt

Mychael Barratt‘s Solo Show opens tonight Thursday 10th September from 6-9pm at For Arts Sake, 45 Bond St, W5 5AS, and runs until 11th October

This is a view I never expected to see – Christ Church, Spitalfields, peering through the ruins of the London Fruit & Wool Exchange. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is personally responsible for this tragic scene, by overturning the unanimous democratic decision of Tower Hamlets Council to reject the new development.

A dignified edifice of brick and stone, constructed to complement the historic buildings which surround it and which was entirely capable of reuse, is being destroyed and replaced by an overblown generic block of undistinguished design. More than two hundred small local businesses have been displaced for the sake of one international corporate law firm who have already leased all the office space in the new building.

It is paramount that Boris Johnson does not become the agent of destruction of Norton Folgate in the same way, by also overturning the decision of the Council to refuse British Land’s scheme which replaces the historic warehouses there with corporate blocks of fourteen storeys, destroying 72% of the fabric of their site which sits entirely within a Conservation Area.

Boris Johnson has British Land’s Norton Folgate planning application in front of him now and he has until 25th September to decide whether to get involved. If you have not already done so, please write to Boris Johnson and ask him not to interfere in Norton Folgate.

This is a simple guide to how to write to the Mayor of London, asking him to show respect to the people of the East End by upholding the decision of Tower Hamlets Council and not intervening on behalf of British Land.

You can write by email mayor@london.gov.uk (please also provide your postal address in the email) or by post to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London, SE1 2AA

Please quote application numbers PA/14/03548 & PA/14/03618 and write in your own words giving your own reasons why you think Boris Johnson should not interfere with Norton Folgate, but you might like to consider including the following points.

1. The decision to reject British Land’s application was made democratically by Tower Hamlets Strategic Development Committee with 4 votes against, 4 abstentions and o votes in favour.  This is what the people of East London want.

2. There were more than 550 letters of objection but only 7 in favour.

3. The site is entirely within the Elder St Conservation Area which is protected by the Council’s own Conservation Policy, recommending repair of the buildings – not wholesale demolition as proposed by British Land.

4. The Spitalfields Trust has produced a viable alternative scheme which addresses local housing and employment needs, and preserves the heritage assets for future generations.

Note the troughs of plants along the top of the blue hoardings to compensate us for the demolition

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Flossie Reed & Vi Charlton

Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined two coachloads of East Enders on a trip to Kent last week for a spot of hopping at Little Scotney Farm, courtesy of Company Drinks. As you can imagine, it was not the first time in the hop gardens for many of the participants which cast a certain emotionalism upon the day – Flossie Reed first visited in 1927 and Vi Charlton in 1930, as babes in their mothers’ arms.

Hop harvest in Kent takes a month and we were blessed with a warm September day for our visit in the midst of the picking season. The pickers set to work enthusiastically pulling the flowers from the bines and tossing them into a long bin set on the grass, just up the hill from the hop gardens and in the shadow of the oasthouses looming overhead.

The pungent bittersweet smell of the hop flowers proved a powerful catalyst for memories of hop picking years ago. Vi Charlton recalled her childhood joy at encountering  the fresh green of the rural world after the dirty sooty atmosphere of Wapping in the thirties. “I had an aunt who was a champion picker,” she admitted to me,“Nobody liked her because she showed everyone else up.”

“It was a matriarchal society,” Vi confirmed with a philosophical shrug,” but the men would come down at the weekend and drink away the money the women had earned in the week.”

“We were greedy pickers,” continued Flossie Reed widening her eyes with enthusiasm, “We had to borrow money from a money-lender to come down and we had nothing left at the end once we’d paid for our food, but it was a lovely holiday.”

“I first came here when I was ten and now I’m eighty-four,” declared Ronald Prendergast without pausing from his picking,“it was a way of life. There were eleven of us in my family and we came down every year from West Ham. We were very poor in those days and by coming here we earned a little money to buy things for Christmas.”

As we sat along either side of the bin at our work, tractors rattled up and down the lane all day delivering the bines from the gardens to the barn at the top of the hill. There they were hooked onto chains that carried them through a machine which stripped off the flowers. Then a conveyor belt whisked the hops up to where it was stored in sacks prior to being spread out to dry in the oasthouses. Thus a dozen people were able to achieve a harvest once undertaken by armies of pickers.

I climbed up into the loft where Graham Watkins was shovelling hops through a chute in the floor to the room below, where it was parcelled up into bales ready for sale. Graham showed me the conical oasthouses in which hops is dried for six hours at a stretch night and day, and as he opened the doors I was hit by a wave of humid air emanating from within.

Little Scotney is one of the last of a handful of farms in Kent still growing and processing hops in the traditional way, yet numbers stencilled on the wall testify to the growing output of the farm through the decades and the rapidly-increasing demand in this century, thanks to the revival in brewing led by microbreweries.

In the afternoon, Evin O’Riordan founder of Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey arrived to collect the hops we had picked that would find their way into a green hop ale before the end of the day. “It’s an opportunity to express something of a place and a moment in time,” he confided to me with succinct eloquence.

Ronald Prendergast - “I’d sooner pick hops than sit in front of a computer”

Delivering the bines from the garden

Hooking up the bines

The bines move along a conveyor

The bines heading into the machine that strips the flowers

Sorting the hops

Hops drying in the oasthouse

Inside the oasthouse roof

Recording the number of pockets (bales) of hops produced each year

Graham Watkins

Baling up the hops

Bales of hops ready for sale

Evin O’Riordan of Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey

Little Scotney Farm

The hopping party (click photograph to enlarge)

Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien

Movements, Deals & Drinks is a project by international artist group Myvillages, founded in 2003 by Kathrin Böhm, Wapke Feenstra & Antje Schiffers. The project was commissioned by Create and is registered as a Community Interest Company with the name Company Drinks. Company Drinks is supported by the Borough of Barking & Dagenham.

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