Clerkenwell observations, on the streets and within the venues at CDW 2026

The last three years I have visited Clerkenwell Design Week I've discovered new things and interacted with interesting people, as per my glowing reviews in 2023 and in 2025. But not this year, because I found it has become more of more a hospitality event with unusual seating, rather than a showcase for design with occasional canapés. 

I visited for 3-4 hours on both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. First stop was the booth outside the Farringdon station where, in previous years, they print the badges for scanning on entry to the participating venues. This year we were encouraged to use our phones. However, I'd had problems accessing the app through the QR linky code thing they'd sent me, probably because I have an old model. BTW: App. That 'word' makes me shudder – sounds like a disease as in, keep away, I've got apps. 

The lady said that the QR code was my tickety barcode thing, though that did seem strange to me and at odds with the text that accompanied it. Ah, but yes/no, it seems she was wrong and my hunch was right, because later in the day, the on-screen doobrey wasn't recognised at the entrance to St John's church and the rude geezer there as good as berated me (er, it was fine the last eight places I visited, mate) then, in a very stroppy manner he printed off a physical ticket for me complete with a lanyard I said I didn't need, and said that next year the event would all be completely digital, all delivered in a tone that intimated I was stupid. 

Anyway, that exchange was mid-afternoon, let's get back to the beginning... my first visit was to a company on St John Street where I had previously registered to attend a talk. The staff looked confused. It seems the talk wasn't happening, or ever, or it had happened, or it scheduled for another time. They were as confused as I was. Hmm. I'd booked that about 5 weeks ago, yet I'd not had any alerts re a change to the date. Ah well. Plenty more to see...

I wandered northwards and went into a couple of other places only to find that I was completely ignored. OK, so I am a woman well over 50, and I am therefore quite used to being invisible even when I am wearing a red hat or a turquoise jacket, but surely CDW is a promotional event – shouldn't they be keen to talk to potential new clients and customers?  In two stores, I gazed intently and inquisitively at products and swatches and perused the leaflets, but the staff stood chatting amongst themselves swigging bottles of beer or sipping from plastic Prosecco flutes, guffawing at each others' anecdotes. They could well have been ignoring their best client ever. 

Back outside, I saw something that cheered me up. Something that has nothing to do with CDW – a manhole cover plate with wood paving inside it, directly outside 79 St John Street:

Blimey!  I have found other similar examples in the vicinity too (see my A-Z here) – though it's strange that I hadn't spotted this particular one before. I walked up and down the street looking for more, but no joy, so back to the world of interior design. 

At the junction with Clerkenwell Rd there is a company that designs and produces mosaics. But no one was looking at the mosaics, instead they were all eating free pizza and drinking wine or whatever. So, obv, I did the same. I noticed that nobody was actually interacting. No one made eye contact with me. The one person I said 'hello' to looked at me like I was mad. Do these people have friend? A staff member was preoccupied arranging pre-poured Prosecco into two neat rows. I wondered who pays for all this. 

Feeling I had travelled to a parallel universe, I was in the need of some decent conversation so I went to visit my friend Thomas who works at at a company making office environments. Good chats (phew!), plus a glass of red and a small plate of salad. Natch. 

Along the way I sampled raspberry ice cream and chatted about indoor plants where I was given a small spider plant. Later, people asked me where I got the free plant.  Hmm. As I suspected, it's all about the freebies. 

I then headed to St John's church where the aforementioned bolshy badge man was stationed, and headed down the stairs to the crypt. But – Ker–POW! I was dazzled by white! I am pretty sure I have never before seen it so shockingly bright down there.

Imho, the bright paintwork is unsuitable for this space. It's likely that it's been applied specifically for events like this. The paint is sloppily applied and doesn't bear close inspection – go check for yourself. I was pretty sure that it hadn't been this bright white in the past – I'd spent a lot of time down there when I was doing the Clerkenwell and Islington guiding course back in 2017, and if it has been like this last year during CDW, then I surely would have noticed. Perhaps they have boosted the lighting down there and this has exacerbated the effect..?  My old photos show that the walls were previously painted, but not this shade of florescence. Such a shame. A warmer, more natural, creamy tone would be far better – but why paint stone in the first instance? 

By 4.30pm I'd had enough. I decided to come back fresh the next day. 

On Thursday, I arrived via Barbican and, having decided I needed a purpose, a theme, I set about finding out about cork for walls and floors. But, here we go again... two more showrooms failed to notice me looking at their samples even though I was the only potential punter in the room.

So I went to see who was exhibiting within The Charterhouse where, I got chatting to a friendly exhibitor. He said it seemed quiet and he wondered if people knew they were there. Ironically, the floor there is mostly covered in cork tiles!

The pic on the left, above, is a terrazzo stairwell within a building on St John's Lane which I found to be more interesting that the products in the showrooms. I wandered around in there completely unnoticed. Again. Perhaps I should take up a life of crime/theft? 

Adjacent to St John's Gate I entered a courtyard full of with people chatting and quaffing free alcohol, plus nuts, olives and cherries (very nice, thank you). The space is bordered by companies, one of which has some gorgeous fabrics and textiles.

I happened to spot this black and white image by Alexander Girard framed up on one of the walls here. A few years back I'd bought this a greeting card for a friend's wedding.   

I am not mentioning the names of the companies here. Because I cannot recall all of them so best that I omit them all. You'd think the pocket map and guide book would help with that, but no. The format is a mess. Large versions of the same were attached to walls here and there but they are as good as useless because both listings/indexes are sorted alphabetically thereby assuming you know who you are looking for in the first instance. Aaargh! You might think, ooh what was that company I walked past half hour ago. Well, good luck, because you will need to scan the whole thing to find them again. 

It would be wise to have a list in numerical order. However, finding a number on the map is difficult because they are not consecutive across it, as is the norm. It's horrible. I noticed all this last year too, but glossed over it because the event was so much better. This year, because I was trying to find companies who made certain things, it highlighted the inadequacies of the information.

I headed to The House of Detention, its old prison cells used to showcase lighting companies. In previous years this has always been one of the most vibrant zones with a steady stream of people going in and out, up and down the stairs. But this year it was rather empty, probably because everyone was eating and drinking elsewhere. I tried to find something innovative and interesting to inspire me, and I tried to find people to talk to. But this is what I was met with:

Lighting should be inviting. This environment was alienating. So I removed myself and went to look at the spaces within St James's church on the green. On entering the crypt, I stopped in my tracks when I noticed a really wobbly Heal's logo with horrid letter spacing on a wooden partition, below, left:

Convinced this was a badly applied rub-down (well, it is – there's a lost serif at extreme top left as well  as the undulating baseline), I looked at their printed ephemera and discovered that this ugliness is actually Heal's standard identity! See here. The H and the E look, to me, unbalanced, almost flipped, as regards the position of the cross bar. After all, why employ an E with a base longer than it's top width that creates an awkward space against the slope of the A which is itself divorced from the L – as we used to say, you could drive a bus through there! Also, why is the apostrophe positioned so low? The choice of "typeface" is not good. There's also the issue of the letter-spacey sans serif as a secondary line underneath that looks like an afterthought. Eurgh. 

'Where Design Lives." Full point. Statement. Yeah. Seriously? Is it supposed to be ironic? Who 'designed' this guff? How much did they get paid?! 

I headed to The Sessions House but couldn't get in –  a bouncer on the door said it was closed to visitors now (4.15pm) so, having had enough of all this stuff, I went for a sit down somewhere nice, on a bench under some trees in the lovely St John's gardens, off Britton Street

In conclusion, CDW has always been a schmoozing event but this year it just got silly. It is now just a big jolly – three days of parties catered for by hospitality companies keen to promote their nibbles and slurpables. It's become all about the food and drink – the new products and design innovations for homes and offices are now incidental. In contrast, many exhibition spaces are devoid of people. My heart went out to the companies who had travelled here from other countries only to find that hardly anyone came to see them. 

On the plus side, I found another example of a wood-filled manhole cover for my ever-expanding collection.

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A visit to William Booth Memorial Training College, Champion Park, Denmark Hill

Earlier this year I joined a group tour of the buildings and grounds that make up the Salvation Army training college opposite Denmark Hill station. For me, this visit was well overdue as I’ve been meaning to find out what’s beyond the impressive foyer for many years now. Whenever I’ve been in the vicinity before it’s been on days when the library and museum are closed to the public.  I am particularly interested because this is a Giles Gilbert Scott design and, since 2020, I have been researching the man, visiting his buildings and hosting talks and in-person presentations about him.

Constructed 1928-32, GGS's style is evident within many of the architectural elements here, such as the tower and brickwork patterns which echo similar features at Liverpool Cathedral, Cambridge University Library and Bankside power station.

However, I think elements of this development, especially the station-facing façade, was steered by the Sally Army guys who, I've noticed, rather preferred a showy-offy kind of style to Giles's less is more approach. You need only to check out some of their small town citadels, masquerading as castles and fortresses, to see what I mean. Here at Champion Park we see OTT ecclesiastical embellishments at high level and windows that look rather disproportionate as if they were enlarged after the design was approved. Indeed, the building opened in 1929 before it was finished.  

For some reason I did not take pics of the foyer during this visit. The tour started in the library and we were taken to the upper floors via a gorgeous Hollywood Deco style staircase to the museum.  As you can see, the stairs wrap around a lovely old cage elevator/lift.

The stairs on the upper floors afforded views of the meditative walking maze/spiral within the grass at the rear, which is barely discernible from ground level. I love a maze. There's a similar one at the southern end of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and another within a council estate near Olympia.

I really like the stripey carpet and the berry colours echoed on the chairs.

We walked around the gated grounds, which resembles a small village, and we were shown inside some of the living quarters which, although compact, are now bigger than the tiny cell-like spaces that were part of the original design.  

It was here that I spotted at my feet a man hole cover with wood blocks within some of the segments – ooh, another one to add to the A-Z of Woodblocks 

I surmised that the college must have been built on what had previously been Victorian streets but I now see that doesn't appear to be the case, as is evident by the maps available here on Southwark Council's site. As you can see by the snippet below of Kelly & Co's map, c1888, there were no other streets between Champion Park and Champion Grove. Indeed, later folding maps I have to hand here show the same empty space into the 1940s, well after the college was built.

Hmmm... we have two options – either the man hole cover plate was imprted from somewhere else, or this area of Champion Park might have previously been part of a private business that used many horses and carts. The wood block surface would have kept the clippety-clop and carting and clanking noises to a minimum so as not to upset the well-to-do residents living in Champion Grove and the 1840's paired villas along Grove Lane. Any further info welcome. 

FYI, 'champion' has nothing to do with winners or vinegar – we should be pronouncing it with a french accent because the area is named after Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, a Huguenot refugee who, in 1717, built Champion Lodge on his 30-acre estate here.    

Delightful street art by Max Jaz Art in Holloway Road

Next time you are shopping in Holloway, look out for a series of hand-painted artworks between Boots and Lidl.

I think I first spotted them in mid-2024, yet whenever I point them out to Holloway locals, whether friends, other shoppers or people at the bus stop, it is rare that they have ever noticed them before.

I love the double trompe-l'oeil of the corner window with a view beyond. A lot of time and effort has gone into this. They are little works of art containing, I think, hidden messages or stories. 

I wonder if the figure with a light in their hand is supposed to be anyone in particular:

Bizarrely, the chevron tape seems to enhance this artwork. Max Jaz is clearly a cat lover as a feline friend is shown on almost every panel. 

The panel closest to Lidl shows two people sitting at a table. It's the only piece that is signed, on the blue jumper, on the trainers and as a squared-up underneath:

If you look closely, you can see it's romantic – there are flowers on the table and fireworks in the sky. The blond moustachioed male on the left is secreting a ring underneath the table, probably about to propose marriage to the redhead in yellow. One of these people is surely the artist.

I can't quite deduce the name on her necklace though – something like Smartina – my photo here is a bit blurred – whoops! I think we can deduce that the couple shown embracing in the first pair of pics (with a cat at their feet and an angel playing a guitar above their heads) are the same two people. 

The style is ver much like murals I have seen. Which makes me wonder, at what size does a painting on a wall become a mural? Or does a mural have to tell a story or multiple stories? 

Any further info about the artist and the stories behind these works is most welcome. 

Braidwood Passage – Nicely reinvented with hand-made tiles

The scaffold has been removed and Braidwood Passage is again available as a link between Aldersgate Street and Cloth Street. It's a delight – and really uplifting to see some attractive new architecture, employing unusual bespoke decorative elements. 

This teal blue tiled wall with splashes of colour beckoned me to investigate its full length. The V-shape or zig-zag tiles form a lattice effect and are randomly interspersed with unique hand-painted designs in pinks, yellows and red by Alexis Teplin. It's a delight.

I wonder if these patterns depict something specific, or perhaps they form a whole image or design when placed together. 

The next two pics show the Cloth Street end (left) and then half-way back to Aldersgate Street looking across to The Barbican complex (right):

Nice. More about the project can me found on Fletcher Priest Architects site here. 

As I write this, I've just noticed that the City of London bollards that have been installed at both ends are not the same as the one that was at the Barbican end before the reconstruction of this site – the 'new' ones are a different shape and don't sport the coat of arms – see previous year here.

Here's the main entrance of the building which echoes the lattice zig-zag effect as panels set at an angle across the façade:

Here's hoping that the Museum of London building on the opposite side of the street (a sad loss imho) will be replaced with something similarly attractive. 

Some lovely tiled panels in Hornsey High Street have been lost to us

Here we go again. As I am often to be heard saying, nobody demolishes or changes something with the intent to upset us – they really do believe they are improving things. Bless em. 

But once it's gone, it's gone. I'm not asking that we keep everything, that would be daft, but when lovely hints of history that have hung on for over 100 years are suddenly removed and replaced with unsympathetic and often cheap products that surely themselves will not last 100 years, I get a little despondent.

In the last few months I have seen the demise of many lovely old shops fronts that have been stripped of their heritage and replaced with modern flat glass or plastic panels. I hate to point fingers, but I am going to, and not in an accusatory way. Having spoken to many of the owners of these buildings whether during or post-renovation I have often discovered that these people are in the most part from other countries, mainly Turkish, and they truly think that they are doing us a favour by removing what they consider to be dirty, old or as one man said "too much historical". They are not trying to upset us. They want spaces that are clean, modern, boxy and shiny, preferably in white, grey or black, perhaps with a bit of gold lettering added.

Last week I delivered one of my Janes London prints to a house in Hornsey, London N8, and I used the opportunity to investigate the local high street, remembering that when I'd gone through there on a bus one late dark evening earlier this year, I was convinced that I'd noticed some changes to an old shop front.

Yep. Sad to report that the only shop that retained its original floor-to-ceiling tiled walls has had a make-over – the two facing panels, either side of what was a recessed window, have been obliterated. On the day I visited there were too many parked cars in the way to take decent photos so these next pics are screengrabs from Google streetview – top 2022, middle 2023 and bottom 2024 (how it appears today):

Boo hoo. I loved those tiles. They were wonderfully mad, evoking OTT Victorian gin palaces and luxurious hotel lobbies. Much of 1890's North London is beautifully littered with entranceways that resemble tile shop catalogues, showing a variety of patterns that to the modern eye look like they don't belong in the same space – but the chaos works. 

Here's a selection of my own pics to show how the shop in question used to look:

Back in 2012 I wrote a specific blog post about the lovely tiles in this part London. Let's hope that they managed to chip off and sell the tiles and they weren't simply smashed and skipped.

When this terrace was constructed there were tiled pilasters between each shop at street shop – more of my own pics: 

Today, of the few tiled pilasters that remain, they covered in stickers or filth, obliterated by downpipes, or overpainted, whether fully or in half vertically – this is my side! 

The green plaque on the wall above the hairdressers is for David Grieg (1865-1952), grocer and local benefactor. I stood and wondered what he'd make of how this terrace looks today, indeed the whole street. 

Let's look at some other things... I backtracked to No.20 to take pics of the lower half of the gate which bears the name VIVA. I have no idea what sort of company this was, but I always like a bit of bespoke metalwork.

It seems to me that the high street here has changed very quickly in the past decade or so. There's been a change in the type of shops. I used to love going in the auction rooms (they were between the Tesco and the Three Compasses pub, ditto a couple of little antiques and bric-a-brac stores on the opposite side of the street. Many of the shops are today either empty or being revamped, complete with UPVC plate glass fronts. 

However, it's ice to see that, the ghostsign for J.Salmon the grocer is still clinging on, as is the little upholstery shop in the terrace adjacent to The Great Northern Railway Hotel 

An old sign for the Smithfield Refrigerator Works still hangs above the lane at the side of the pub, giving a glimpse towards The New River and a bygone world. Nice to end on an evocative image.

More on lost shop fronts here.

Feeling gloomy with Stephen Fry but uplifted by Hannah Rose Platt at The Hunterian Museum

Back in the day (as they say) I used to love popping into The Hunterian Museum at The Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I'd sometimes arrange to meet friends by Charles Byrne's very tall skeleton which formed a central focus to the exhibits that surrounded it. Here's how the main space looked back then, as shown in on this wikipedia page:

Image: Paul Dean (StoneColdCrazy), September 2007

In 2017 the museum closed for a refit and did not reopen until May 2023. I never like visiting places when they are full of visitors so I let the rush go and resolved to visit later that year. Wandering through the square one day in September, with an hour or so to spare before I met a friend in Covent Garden, I wandered in to have a look and see what had changed. 

They two ladies at the desk asked me if I had a ticket. No. Why would I need one – it's free.  It's timed entries, they said. Grunt. Covid-era rules still in place.

I lied and said I was only in London that day and I had made a special effort to get there. They suggested I wait for a slot. I hovered in the empty foyer for about ten minutes and watched about eight people dribble in. How ridiculous. I went over to the security fella at the entrance to the museum proper and said all I wanted to do was have a peek to see what had changed. Nope, sorry love, more than my job's worth.

Bonkers. It was clear there that there was barely anyone in there and those people who had registered for free tickets hadn't bothered showing up because it was such a nice day outside. I decided to make the best of that weather myself and instead went for a wander. 

I tried again another day in Spring 2024, hoping to just slip in when they weren't looking, but it wasn't possible. I'm a spur-of-the-moment follow-my-nose girl so it simply hasn't occurred to me to book a ticket in all this time. I mean, can't we just arrive and queue up as per John Soane's on the opposite side of the square?! Two years have whizzed by. 

On 16th April I booked a ticket for a concert within the Hunterian's library. Hannah Rose Platt performed songs from Fragile Creatures which is about women in history. It was an amazingly engaging performance and I will be reading more about those stories. The ticket included access to the museum before the gig.

Oh dear. Let's cut to the quick – I don't like it. I'm disappointed. 

On entering the first room there is a cabinet of all sorts and I completely missed an info panel because it's about A3 size and people must have been obscuring it. I only found it when I returned to the room later because I was convinced I had missed some vital information somewhere along the line. 

Like many things these days, the new modern look is grey and boxy, moody and gloomy. The narrow corridors are claustrophobic, like being in an underground maze. There are rows and rows of shelving interspersed a few side rooms that are easily missed. Some directional signage to these would be useful. 

Most of the displays look like a Damien Hirst installation*. 

Some headings here and there to explain the different sections or groupings would be of use. After all, most of us haven't a clue what we are looking at or why these things were of interest when they were collected. There's also scant info to explain what was learned from these specimens, who benefitted from the research going forward. 

A few interactive 'page-turning' displays don't make up for the lack of focal points now that Mr Byrne is no longer on show. I wasn't the only one who wandered into a side room, glanced around, pulled a puzzled face and walked out again. I did three laps convinced I had missed a turning or whole room or a display. Nope. I'd seen it all. 

But I did spot something that amused me. A group of four paintings includes one of Mr David Middleton (1705-1785) – I had to do a double-take because I thought it was Stephen Fry!

I might return to the museum with a friend who hasn't visited before to see what they think of it. Shall we book in advance or shall we try to just wander in when passing...?

*Update, Monday 27th April 2026: The above originally included a low-res photo of a range of fascinating human foetuses and another one of some rows of human skulls, further highlighting my comment that it was all a bit Damien Hirst. 

On the same day this post went live (Friday 24th) I received an email from the museum asking me to remove these images as it seems we are not allowed to take pics of human remains nor can we share them. I had not seen any ref of this when I was there or I would have written about how ridiculous this policy is, pandering to the easily offended (who would rarely visit an institution of this kind) rather than those of us with inquisitive minds. 

It's damage limitation. They are dumbing things down to appease a tiny minority. It's worth pointing out that kids these days can easily access scary movies and online porn yet they are being protected from scientific research.

Cannon lamp posts

Earlier this month I was busy googling info about St James's Square when this image on eBay cropped up in the search results. Here's a screen shot of that page in case the item is sold by the time you click on the link:

The image is dated 1933 and shows at the eastern corner of St James's Square at its junction with Charles II Street here where today an [electric] lamp post stands, the same design most of the others around the square.

Ooh ooh, I thought, I know I've seen a different photo of that lamp post somewhere else. But I couldn't recall where that was, nor could I find ref of it in my files. Hmm. I parked the idea and bookmarked the eBay link. 

Then, a few weeks later, whilst tidying up my ever-expanding collection of London books, I rediscovered and started re-reading H.V. Morton's book Ghosts of London, first published Nov 16th 1939. I love reading old books that contain recollections, observations and personal accounts of old London and this is one of my favourites. Chapter 11 is about gas lamps. Morton recounts time spent with one of the maintenance team who look after and light London's street lamps. The chapter includes a marvellous photo of what Morton is told is a unique cannon lamp post outside No.2 St James's Square, at that time the head office of Canada Life Insurance  – Aha! This is where I'd seen it! 

Morton's text continues... 

He was a brother of... Lord Falmouth. This ship played her part in the tremendous victory over the French off Cape Finisterre, and this London lamp post was one of the guns which she captured from the French. Boscawen presented it to his brother, and, when the gas lighting came in about sixty years later, the old cannon was used as the stand for the first gas light in front of Lord Falmouth's house (...) The lamp standard springs from the muzzle that once fired shot at Anson's squadron one hundred and eighty-eight years ago. 

But here's strange, the eBay image showing the post being removed is dated 1933. This surely cannot be correct if Morton is writing about it in the run up to Nov 1939. I very much doubt that it took him over  six years to complete.

But is it, was it, unique? I wonder if a clarifying word/element is missing in this claim, that this post design was the only one of its kind on a public highway. Because, a few days after rediscovering Morton's book, I happened to be wandering from Fleet Street to Lincoln's Inn Square and, as I entered the south side of New Square from Carey Street, I happened to notice what looked like a very similar silhouette ahead of me:

However, on closer inspection, I decided it was a modern replica – too new, too smooth, too perfect. Hmmm (my ponder word). I looked across the square and could see that there were many more of this design here and there, interspersed with fancier shapes and many of the lanterns are still gas-powered. I decided to walk clockwise around the square. 

This is the southern edge looking eastwards (left) and westwards (right) towards another cannon-shaped base which had an illuminated gas lantern at 5.30pm, followed by a similar one at the corner:

The western side includes a lamp base with faceted rings around it:

Further along I noticed that many of the cannon-shaped lamp bases sport the name BROXAP with the letters arranged vertically. So, yes, they are indeed newly-produced – it turns out the company makes 164 different types of bollard!

Hmmm (again), but why make the bases of some of these lamp posts resemble bollards? 

I have an idea... 

Almost at the NW corner there is another lamp with a cannon-shaped base but this one appears to be older. The metal is different, less new-looking, and it also has some ventilation holes drilled around the top band:

Could this particular lamp post be an original cannon base as per the one that was at St James's Square? Perhaps this is the last one left standing, where before there were many, and this one has been reproduced around the square. Note that this is a private square not a public highway, hence explaining why the St James's one is cited as being 'unique'..? If my hunch is true then there might be more of these things in the vicinity or within other inns of court or private squres.

How lovely to have all these things come together in the space of three weeks – the eBay listing, the book, the street furniture here.

There are many more lovely features in New Square so, before I end this post, lets just look at a few of them. There's some fabulous wisteria adorning the eastern side:

The date of the hall can be found within the brickwork of the building and there are impressive lamp posts and lanterns on the northern side of the square, almost regal in their design:

On the NE corner you'll find an excellent example of a Royal Mail post box complete with a directional sign pointing to a Post Office that used to be at the northern end of Chancery Lane. Today, the nearest POs are within the Rymans on Grays Inn Rd or on Aldwych

My work here is done. For now.