The Cornershop Bethnal Green

At the beginning of August a new shop opened in Bethnal Green just behind Columbia Road, a new cornershop but a cornershop like no other!  The shop looks like it has been fully stocked with groceries, sweets and newspapers but look a little closer and you'll see they are all made of FELT.

It is the work of Lucy Sparrow and it took 8 months to produce the 4,000 plus items. I visited yesterday with some friends and we spent a very long time looking at each individual item and seeing something new at every turn.  You cannot buy the 'stock' however you can order items to be collected or sent on to you. Lucy has also been running a series of workshops.

The exhibition is on until 31st August and is open between 10am and 7pm. Lucy can be found at Sew Your Soul or @sewyoursoul #thecornershop.  The 'shop' will be moving to a gallery in Brighton soon!

TIME Tattoo Art Today at Somerset House

This free exhibition started last month at Somerset House and had been on my To Do List for a while.  It is situated in the Embankment Galleries and displays original artworks from some of the most well known tattoo artists from around the world. Over 70 of them are represented in this colourful and thought provoking exhibition.

The theme of the exhibition is Time and the brief was to create an original artwork on any surface except skin, their favoured medium! My favourite is the beautiful Rouge painting by Rose Hardy.

It has been curated by Claudia De Sabe and Miki Vailetto and runs until the 5th October 2014. 

 Detail Rouge by Rose Hardy

Tower Hamlets at Street Level Bank Holiday Walks

Way back in April I mentioned that I was going to be doing an Introduction to Guiding Course in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and I don't think I've mentioned it again since... well a lot has happened since then....

I've walked an enormous number of the streets of TH, learnt the wonderful history relating to areas, buildings and people, met some great people who are also as mad about London as myself and as a result of the course I'm doing a stop on a guided walk very very soon!

After our course finished a core group of about 10 of us plus five guides who did walks for us each Saturday decided that it would be great to keep the momentum going and start looking into the possibility of putting a Tower Hamlets Guiding project together and the Tower Hamlets Walkshop evolved!  Course leader David Charnick discussed the possibility of starting with a series of  FREE walks over the Bank Holiday Weekend 23rd to 25th August 2014 one of which would involve six of the trainee guides.  This particular walk will take place on Sunday afternoon at 3pm and covers Bethnal Green and Mile End.

The other walks look at the very different areas around Mile End, Bow, Poplar, Limehouse, Stepney and a different side of Bethnal Green.

There is still more to learn about Tower Hamlets but I feel I know it as well as my home Borough now!

Here is the link to book these free walks on Eventbrite.  There are limited spaces so please book early!

There is also a page on Facebook with further information TH Walkshop

The RIBA Stirling Prize 2014 - The London Aquatics Centre

Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects for the Olympic Delivery Authority this building has been constructed and then partially deconstructed over the last nine years and this week saw it's finished beauty make the RIBA Stirling Prize Shortlist 2014. The winner will be chosen on 16th October 2014 from a list that contains two other London candidates the LSE Saw Swee Hock Student Centre and The Shard.

I have visited The London Aquatics Centre often since it opened it's doors to the public, even attending a World Series Diving event and it is a very special place. Looking around you see concrete shaped into extraordinary curves and the metal fittings up in the spectator gallery mirroring those used in and around the pools...the pool steps and diving board handrails.  I particularly like the diving platforms, again shaped in concrete and the stunning ceiling.  When it was first opened you could look out of the windows on both sides however, those to the right looking towards the City have now been obscured.

Now that the side wings have been removed the building looks perfect and definitely worthy of being on the shortlist.  The building is now in the hands of GLL and open to the public for swimming, diving and swimming lessons.  If you don't fancy going for a swim and just want to have a look around the inside you can wander for as long as you'd like for £1.00! There is also a cafe area at entrance level.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that this space is crowned overall winner for 2014!

Fine Cell Work

A few weeks ago I visited Danson House, Bexley and the Things We Do in Bed Exhibition curated by Tracy Chevalier and was blown away by a modern quilt by Fine Cell Work. A friend had alerted me to them a few years ago and I was also aware that big businesses such as Firmdale hotels were great supporters of theirs using cushions in their public spaces. This however was the first time I had seen such a large item by them.

Fine Cell Work is a social enterprise that teaches prisoners sewing techniques allowing them to make beautiful soft furnishings which are then sold. These skills can then be used on release from prison and assist their re-entry into society.

The work they do is exquisite and anyone purchasing an item is encouraged to write a note to the person who made it without any personal details for obvious reasons.

 

They only have the one quilt on display at Danson House although several of their cushions are available in the shop.  The quilt is the work of many prisoners and each square tells a story....some of those are in printed form in a book in the room.

A very worthwhile enterprise and also fantastic needlework.

The exhibition runs until 31st October 2014 and is well worth a visit.

Museums at Night 2014 - The British Postal Museum Archive

I wrote this last year after a visit to the British Postal Museum Archive about how postcodes originated....

The British Postal Museum Archive has been a favourite place of mine for several years now...  I'm not sure whether it was a visit to their Store in Debden which started it or an evening talk at the archive itself.  The Store holds tours each month and events throughout the year and is well worth a visit.

A few weeks ago I attended a talk by Helen Kearney at the archive Search Room about the evolution of the postal map and it's importance in history.  The original postal map was drawn up by cartographer Edward Stanford in 1856 at the request of Rowland Hill and contained 10 postal districts which all bar two are still used today for the first part of your postcode.  Originally we had Northern, North Eastern, Eastern, South Eastern, Southern, South West, Western and North Western Districts.  The two that were lost were the North Eastern District and the Southern District in 1865 and 1866 respectively.

This meant that there could be daily deliveries between each District Office rather than mail coming into the centre of London and then having to be delivered out again once sorted!

The map has a radius of almost 12 miles measured from the original Central Post Office of St Martin's Le Grand very close to St Paul's Cathedral and has only slightly changed to this day.  The numbering of postal areas was a few more years in coming despite repeated attempts since 1911.  It was WW1 and the inexperienced temporary sorters that eventually meant that the District plus number system was introduced.

We learnt from Helen that the area containing the District office was always linked to number 1…N1, SW1 etc and then areas within a district were put in alphabetical order and numbered consecutively after that.  This means that two adjacent areas in a postal district could be numbered N1 and N10!

A reminder of these now disappeared postal districts can be found on a few unchanged streets signs, such as Stamford Grove West in Stamford Hill which still has NE displayed on the sign.

It was an interesting talk and a previous version can be listened to on the BPMA website.