On Friday afternoon, after spending a pleasant hour or so at The Ben Uri Gallery looking at The Anthony Rudolf Collection, specifically his relationship with the marvellously talented Paula Rego (wow!), I headed north up Abbey Road and, as I approached the road bridge over the railway adjacent to Langtry Walk, South Hampstead, I noticed there are faded murals on either side and I wondered if the walls might also be a form of advertising as per the Guinness mural just east of here in Southampton Road.
The artwork here is actually difficult to see when you are up close or walking past – probably best viewed from the top deck of a bus or, if on foot, from the middle of the road, which isn't really possible as regards the traffic, and the railings rather obscure the view from either side.
Here is the West side as I approached:
And this is the East side as viewed from more-or-less the same spot:
The paintwork is rather splishy-sploshy and in many places very faded or obscured by graffiti and I was half way along this west side before I noticed anything discernible – a spotty yellow beast caught my eye, followed by a few bizarre 'humans' and then something that looked like a dinosaur and a date of Summer '78, indicating that it's been here 47 years!
So out came the camera and I started taking pics along the whole wall, finding it was easier to view the illustrations on a small screen. There are no references to any alcoholic beverages, instead we have a series of loosely-painted figures and animals. I am at a loss as to whether there is a theme here and I wonder if the things depicted relate in some way to this part of Camden.
Returning to beginning, here's the wall from the left/south end heading northwards. The first figure is a dark-skinned lady with wings in a white dress and white shoes next to a pale-skinned brunette in a pink dress who appears to be inside a room/turret. Perhaps they are characters from fairytales? I can't decide if the yellow spotty beast is a horse or a leopard. The big peach-coloured creature is either a cat or a dog wearing glasses.
I now see that I forgot to take the pics of the section between the ladies and the spotty beast, but by zooming in on the wide shot below and looking at google streetview I can make out a figure in yellow, lots of flowers and shrubs, and a small child in blue that looks to be balancing an octopus on its head.
After the dog/cat, there's a pointy-eared, masked and muscly, superhero character who is waving his pointy brown hand at us. He is either wearing something striped or is a zebraman hybrid.
The fella next to the zebraman could be wearing a crown, or perhaps he's a strongman as it looks like he's holding a bar at chest height that has pendulous phallic things at each end. The last one of these three gentlemen also looks to be wearing a crown enhanced with rubies, or perhaps that's a shock of blond hair. He's very happy about his diagonally-striped jumper.
There follows a huge bit of tagging where 'DOGGS' has covered quite a lot of the artwork (not shown here) after which the mural is signed and dated but the powers that be have seen fit to slap a Danger sign across the wording.
I can make out D S….NTING, Summer '78 on a banner which is supported on the right side by a dark haired man in a blue stripey jumper. Next to him we have the little stick man from The Saint TV programme that starred Roger Moore the titular role (eh? why?) and then that aforementioned dinosaur which, I didn’t realise until I started pulling this together, better resembles The Gruffalo.
But it can't be The Gruffalo because that didn’t appear in print until 1999, seventeen years after this mural was painted, so perhaps it’s supposed to be one of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are which was published in 1963. After the horned beast there is an igloo beneath a night sky complete with crescent moon and two colourful men having a jig about near a forest of fir trees.
A tobogganist wearing a green roll-neck jumper, hat, scarf and goggles, then whizzes down the side of a snowy landscape that might be a nod to Parliament Hill Fields in the wintertime, and the whole thing ends with a mountain range which surely can't be Hampstead.
The eastern side of the road starts at the northern end with a double decker London bus. Across its advertising space it bears the the name of the people who made this mural in Summer 1973. Unfortunately this has been tagged and the original hand-painted lettering has been partially obscured making it rather hard to discern.
I suspect it’s a local school. Two words beginning K... R...?
After the bus there is a large head and shoulders of a green-skinned man with black hair and beard. There are lots of people behind him, and similar crowds continue for half the mural because, as we see, as they have come to see a parade.
It starts with a zebra pulling circus cage that contains a tiger. Then we see a moustachioed policeman and a fella that resembles either Elvis or The Fonz. Then a man running followed by a man wearing a red coat and striped trousers who, on close inspection, is playing a trumpet. Aha, the band has arrived!
And here comes the elephant with another ill-positioned warning sign has been slapped over its eye and ear.
A tall tree or post begins a new section with a large area of black paint behind what I think is a either sea lion (part of the circus) or a short-legged grey dog within a bucolic scene which includes a colourful butterfly, a fox, and a small animal or bird hiding in a hollow in a tree.
A wooden fence around a lake (not shown here) could be one of the ponds on Hampstead Heath.
This is followed by some kind of strange tall striped thing. At first I wondered if this depicted a firework display and/or a bonfire referencing local events but, having again looked at the google streetview, I now believe it's a Punch and Judy tent. This wall ends with a raven haired lady in a red coat carrying a large yellow sack decorated with blue spots.
Intriguing eh? If this is 47 years old, then there must surely be come ex-Camden schoolkids still around who remember this being installed, or even helped to paint it. Any additional info most welcome.
