Clik here to view.
Peta Bridle’s River Etchings
It has been a year since we heard from Peta Bridle, but this week she sent me her latest drypoint etchings, all inspired by the presence of the River Thames, to add to her growing portfolio of London,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gentle Author’s Cries Of Covent Garden
I am taking part in the SOUNDS OF THE CITY evening at the London Transport Museum next Friday 19th May, showing some favourite images of CRIES OF LONDON that portray street life in Covent Garden, as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At Emery Walker’s House
Kelmscott Press & Doves Press editions at Emery Walker’s House Typographer and Printer, Emery Walker and Designer and Poet, William Morris both lived in homes on the Thames in a part of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Terry Scales, Artist
Terry Scales Terry Scales has lived for more than fifty years in a quiet back street in a forgotten corner of Greenwich where the tourists do not stray. To find him, I wandered through narrow...
View ArticleClik here to view.
East End Toy Manufacturers of 1917
Seeking lost East End toy manufacturers by studying copies of GAMES & TOYS, a trade publication from 1917, recently in the Victoria & Albert Museum Childhood Archive in Bethnal Green, I was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In The Woods With Barn The Spoon
Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven travelled a long way from Stepney to spend a weekend in the deep woods with celebrated East End Spoon Carver Barn the Spoon and members of his Green Wood...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At The Painted Hall In Greenwich
Currently, there is a once in a lifetime chance to climb up and view James Thornhill’s astonishing painted ceiling at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich at close quarters. When you walk into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Desire Paths Of The East End
In Weavers’ Fields Who can resist the appeal of the path worn solely by footsteps? I was never convinced by John Bunyan’s pilgrim who believed salvation lay in sticking exclusively to the straight...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembering Joseph Grimaldi In Finsbury
Zaz the clown spins a disc for Joseph Grimaldi Next week will see the one hundred and eightieth anniversary of the death of the world’s most famous clown, Joseph Grimaldi, on May 31st and a small...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Bethnal Green Childhood
Linda Wilkinson, who grew up near Columbia Rd Market, recalls her family’s Sunday rituals in this extract from her forthcoming memoir of departure and return to the East End, COLUMBIA ROAD: OF BLOOD...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Janet Brooke’s East End Shopfronts
In the eighties, Janet Brooke undertook series of prints of some favourite East End shops Cafe, Roman Rd “I moved to Bow in the mid-seventies after a stint of squatting in Whitechapel and Leytonstone....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Roy Wild, Loving Son
Roy with his Mum & Dad in the forties Previously in these pages, I have reported Roy Wild’s stories of working at the Bishopsgate Goodsyard and his family’s hop-picking adventures, but the last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At Sangorski & Sutcliffe
As a twenty-one year old photojournalist, Monty Meth visited Sangorski & Sutcliffe, traditional bookbinders, and took portraits of the craftsmen and women at their workshop in Poland St, published...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Trinity Green Almshouses Are Saved
Thanks in no small part to the large number of letters of objection, not least those written by you the readers of Spitalfields Life, Tower Hamlets Council refused Sainsbury’s proposal for a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Last East End Chair Frame Makers
Jim & Hales Vaughan, fifth generation furniture makers These are the last days of the last chair frame makers in the East End. Within a matter of weeks, brothers Jim & Hales Vaughan of H...
View ArticleClik here to view.
East End Vernacular
Provisional cover design featuring ‘St James Rd, Old Ford’ by Henry Silk . With your help, this October I plan to publish EAST END VERNACULAR, a beautifully illustrated hardback book celebrating the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Albert Turpin, Artist, Window Cleaner & Mayor Of Bethnal Green
In the first of a series of profiles of artists featured in EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century to be published by Spitalfields Life Books in October,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dan Jones, Artist
In the third of my series of profiles of artists featured in EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century to be published by Spitalfields Life Books in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Phil Maxwell & Hazuan Hashim’s East End Films
In celebration of Phil Maxwell & Hazuan Hashim’s AUSTERITY FIGHT which premieres at Rich Mix in the Bethnal Green Rd tomorrow, Friday 16th June as part of EAST END FILM FESTIVAL 2017, I am offering...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cyril Mann, Painter
In the fourth of my series of profiles of artists featured in EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century to be published by Spitalfields Life Books in...
View Article