Sir George Peabody and Paul Julius Baron Von Reuter – marvellous memorials

I wrote recently about the shops around the exterior of the Royal Exchange and their lovely architectural details. The pedestrianised street that runs along the eastern side offers plenty more to feast your eyes on. Here you'll find gorgeous Victorian street furniture, such as bollards and benches and lamp posts that contain some of the few surviving gas-powered lanterns in the City of London* as well as some K6 phone boxes and, along the buildings on the eastern side facing the exchange building, there are some delightful metalwork panels at low level that depict four hands gripped together – I always think of The Musketeers when I see these; all for one and one for all! 

There are also some excellently-achieved sculptural works to be found here, commemorating two men who had a huge impact on The City and beyond. 

George Peabody was a much loved and well respected businessman and philanthropist. He sits comfortably in his chair staring across Threadneedle Street and, I like to think, into the middle distance, to where the first of his housing estates was constructed in Islington**. Look closely around the base of the plinth to see the names of the people who made this piece:

William Wetmore Story was an American sculptor and Ferdinand von Miller of Munich was also a sculptor in his own right but here he simply casted Story's work as it is not listed as one of his achievements here.   

At the centre of the street, there is different style of memorial created a little over 100 years later. The bust of Paul Julius Reuter has to be one of my favourites in The City due to the mass of justified letterform at lower level echoing the marks at Cornhill.  

Michael Black's informative piece was installed here in 1976. More information and other works here. 

PJBVReuter created the news agency whose Grade II HQ building designed by Lutyens, sits at 85 Fleet Street, currently adjacent to a huge hole where major redevelopment is underway. But I digress...!

*I have yet to finish my coherent history of this form of street lighting (having found that much of the info available is confusing and often contracting in 'fact') – when I finally stop adding and amending to it I will make it live so that I can directt people to it after they attend my walking tours on the subject. 

** Find out more on my 'Look At The Estate We're In' guided walking tour – see here for more

St James's Place and Blue Ball Yard– so much to see

I popped in to St James's Hotel and Club yesterday afternoon to have a chat with Graham, the head concierge. We swopped stories and observations about London's quirks and unusual details and he asked me whether the lamp in adjacent Blue Ball Yard was a still powered by gas. Hmm. I didn't know, so I went to check it out.
I'd done a lot of research on gas lamps last year when planning my walking tours on the subject, so it was strange how I'd not previously investigated this particular little enclave of streets between St James's Street and the park. 

Blue Ball Yard* today gives access to the rear of The Stafford Hotel's American Bar and, yes, the wall-mounted lamp at the left side is indeed a functioning gas lantern. There is another one at the far end but it is hard to access so I'm not sure if that one too is also powered by gas. See the google streetview here.

It occurred to me that there surely must be other gas lamps in the vicinity. A logical idea, being as St James's Palace, The Mall, Carlton Terrace and St James's Park were all mostly lit by gas during the reign of George IV, so it follows that the well-to-do streets here would also be similarly illuminated.

I ventured into St James's Place, the next street down, and immediately found another wall-mounted lamp on the left of the street at No.44 and two more opposite at No2 and No8 (the green plaque commemorates Sir Francis Chichester) with a similar lantern down the turning to the left that leads to the Duke Hotel and a tall standard lamp at the end of the yard. On the left side there's also a row of low level lanterns that appear to have been completely disconnected.

More tall standard lamps can be found at the western end of the main street. most of which marked GeorgeV 1910. I'm surprised they aren't older being as others in the St James's area date from the reign of George IV.  

I counted eleven gas-powered street lamps in St James's Place and this doesn't include those on privately-owned buildings such as the impressive pair outside Spencer House or the one above the door of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, shown below centre. 

I also found some other interesting oddities along the road. For instance, there are only a few coal hole cover plates. All of them sport geometric patterns rather than overt branding although some bear the name Mason, see below left .

There is a bizarre circular cover plate near the lamp at No.45 with brass letters bearing the name of F. Devereux, silversmith, who, I am assuming lived/worked there. These discs usually show the name of the foundry/ironmonger who made/sold the plate. I've looked in old directories but I can't see anyone by the name of Devereux here. Instead, the address is listed as a lodging house in 1882 through to at least 1915 when it's shown as apartments. Any ideas?  

At the far corner, at No 26 there is a twentieth century building that you could say looks out of place with the rest of the street. It's not an office block but a Grade II* luxury apartment building designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and constructed 1959-60. It sports a RIBA architecture award plaque (that I forgot to photograph) but what I particularly like about it is the zeitgeist 1950s typeface used on some of the signage – it's very Univers Condensed Bold Italic. 

Back to the street furniture and metalwork...  just before the entrance to The Stafford Hotel, almost underneath one of the wall-mounted gas lanterns, is a rectangular man hole cover. If you've read my previous posts about this kind of thing you are probably ahead of me here in guessing that this contains twelve little squares of wood block paving, see above right which I'll add with better photos to my next group of wood block findings in another post soon (ooh the excitement!).

Finally, at the far end of the street, there is a little alley off to the right that leads to the rear gate of the St James's Hotel, the building in which I had started this mini-journey. The sunlight on the buildings yesterday afternoon was amazing, making it look more like somewhere in Italy. 

*Blue Ball Yard – I'd been mis-calling it Blue Bell Yard ever since yesterday. I originally thought it was ref to a flower or a hanging bell that with a clapper that was coloured blue. But no, it's a ball. But what blue ball? Is it a game? Was it a sign for something?  There are other Blue Ball pubs in the UK, but I have yet to find out the significance of the name. And Cabbie Blog in this link also gets his bells and balls confused. Incidentally, if you haven't already read his book about his life and observations doing The Knowledge and driving customers around London, I wholeheartedly recommend it. 

The [marvellous] World of Stonehenge at The British Museum– until 17th July 2022 (and a tirade about the V&A's awful Fabergé show)

I am a bit late behind here – I went to see this marvellous British Museum exhibition back in March and I really thought I'd posted about it, especially as I enjoyed it so much, in many different ways.

First of all, this is not an exhibition about Stonehenge itself, nor is it aboout the other Europens sites mentioned in the blurbs. It's actually about the many beautiful items that were being created at the same time the stones were erected. I must admit that I had glossed over that myself when I bought the tickets (I don't like to be laden with preconceptions) and I am so glad I did that, because the surprise at seeing so any intricately-created pieces really did impress me. I had lots of conversations with other attendees there and we were all in a sense of awe. The gold pieces, in particular, were a revelation to me.

Despite being aware that other ancient civilzations, such as in Egypt, were capable of such fine work, I had never before really considered that the same was happening here. This meant that after seeing the show I went to look at other relevant exhibits in the main museum, specificlly intrigued by the gold torques (collared necklaces).

One display at this the show is a collection of carved spheres, each the size of a cricket ball and all different. An accompanying info panel tells us that it has not been ascertained as to what these were created for, or why. They all have intertwined geometric patterns, circular motifs or textured grids on them.

A man at my side was also intrigued by these orbs and we tried to come up with some ideas of our own. I queried why there needed to have a purpose at all and perhaps they were merely decorative. Consider in the future, what will people think of the pointless items of today such as figurines, ornaments, snow domes, nodding dogs, even Rubik cubes and acrylic fingernails? Perhaps these stone balls were simply something to make whilst chatting with the family after dinner or around the fire in the evening, or the crafters were simply honing their skills or testing out new designs and patterns for use on other larger projects. Could they even be the equivalent of a sample set, like a 3D swatch book? Or were they apprentice pieces like those made more recently in the cabinet making and tailoring trades?

We also liked the cases and cabinets that hold the exhibits here – everything is beautifully and clearly displayed within cleverly-constructed thick basic chip board, painted in colours that evoke stone, slate, wood etc, with all the edges rounded and smooth. 

There's lots more to see than gold and balls... do go and check it oout... five weeks left. Tickets here. 

From the sublimely simple and effective to the ill-achived mess that was the Fabergé exhibition at the V&A – dreadful and disappointing, on so many levels. 

This exhibition ended in May. First of all, you couldn't take photos. Well, that's OK but how can you see the teensy weensy workmanship? I often take a snap of small things at museums simply to be able to zoom in for a better view. And, surely, it's the detail in Fabergé pieces that's the most impressive thing?  This might have been assuaged had the pieces not been within cases that only alowed one or two people to view at a time (and here we are in a world of socal distancing!) and only one view possible, from the front. A few carefully positioned mirrors within those cabinets would have been helpful, to say the least. And they could have pasted large format macro shots of the jewelley on the walls or around the cabinets. Or at least supplied magnifying glasses as I have seen available at other museums and galleries. 

The design of the show looked cheap, as if each room had been given to a different first year interior design student as a project. On entering the show there were three big free-standing alcoves, the outer two with nothing in them at all, looking as if they were there for selfie opportinities. Oh, but, no; there was no photography allowed. The first exhibit next to the alcoves was an intricate Fabergé piece but with scant explanation and this threw up lots of questions but we couldn't find the answers, even when we realised that the introduction about the man himself was on a wall behind us, such that it is not visible as you enter. Then a queue to view tiny things in those aformentioned cabinets along a wall. This took ages and I gave up half way hoping that things would improve. Nope. 

Other rooms referred to places and people we had not been introduced to before and I kept going back to previous rooms to find info I might have missed only to return empty. We kept asking 'who?' 'what?' or 'where?' such as a big pic of a shop in part of a short movie that we later sussed by accident was Bond Street. To watch this movie involved standing where people were constantly walking past hindering the view, yet there were clear empty spaces in that room that could have been better adapted.

Only one room had an attempt at graphics on the walls, in the form of white lines on a green backround evoking diamonds, yet this was only in the corner of that room. And with no apparent specific relevanceto the pieces within those cabinets. Another room was shoddily 'decorated' with what looked like recycled props from a wedding or corporate event in the form of fake plants and trellis work. We could not understand twhat a garden had to do with it at all. Oh, and half way through the exhib, two parts of the building are linked by a utilitarian connecting tunnel/room that was painted black. Black like a cave. Talk about ugly. Surely something could have been done with this to make it feel part of the show?

The occasional info panels (A3 sheets pasted on the walls) also look to also have been designed by a novice. I have never seen such ugly misplaced typefaces. I managed to take a couple of cheeky photos even tho on the third attempt I was sternly told 'no photos' even tho I expained that I was snapping the info panels for typo reference, not the jewellery. What a jobsworth! As you can see here, one headline typeface is used here and there but not consistently (other signage had random horizontal rules above or below). Some wacky designer has created a font wherby all elements are the opposite of how they are in cuts of say Times Roman etc. Thicks replace thins and it makes for something that's really hard to read. Oh how radical. But why use it here? Also, a similar serif font is used for headings elsewhere, sometimes all caps, sometime U/lc, as per on the Acknowledgements boards near the exit. These two headline fonts are married with a horribly clunky sans serif for the body text that has clearly been designed for screen use. Bleargh! None of the typefaces used bear any relevance to, or enhance or complement the elegance of the high-end Fabergé brand. 

And then to the last room where Fabergé eggs were displayed in free-standing tall cabinets. Hurrah it was possiblt to walk around all four sides but still not possible to see anything up close and, as with the earlier rooms there was lots of whate space above and below ther glass where large format close-up images could have been installed. Little info panels told us about things inside the eggs that were not visible being as the item was closed. Aaargh. A simple bit of photographic reference would have helped.  The room was horrible, very high, and a strange makeshift-looking dropped ceiling had been installed making it feel like we were in someone's bad barn conversion. And finally, we were amazed to discover there was no shopping experience on exit. We had hoped to flick through some books, admire some Fabergé-inspired jewellery and perhaps buy something relevant like an egg-shaped fridge magnet (that's something I have invented right now). But no... into another dark corridor and out into the museum proper.  

If you missed the show, you didn't miss much at all. The pics and info on the V&A website here are much more informative

There's probably mistakes in this Fabergé rant. I wrote it as a stream of consciousness and I am not going back to edit/check it... If the V&A and Fabergé don't care about the details, then why should I?!!

Flipped Pedim ghostsign in Upper Holloway

This has intrigued me for years:

In Tollington Way, Upper Holloway, N19, on the corner of Cornwallis Road, there was up until about ten years ago a fish and chip shop and restaurant. The building has subsequently been converted into residential use and all signs of battered cod and sausages have been removed.
However, above one window we can see the reversed print of a company name S. M. PEDIM which, judging by the letterform, looks Edwardian in style.
I would assume a sign with this name on it had been painted onto a piece of wood that was later reused; flipped and attached to a wet wall, therefore transferring the name onto the plasterwork.
I can find no evidence of anyone called Pedim in the reference I have to hand.
Any ideas? 

Flippin letters!!

Across Islington, though I have seen it elsewhere too in the UK, there are metal signs created using single letters mostly arranged in an arch or spaced across a gate.
I would guesstimate that 10% of these signs have one or more of the letters within them flipped back to front.
Here are four prime examples:

As you can see, the confusion usually lies with the letters A, M, U, V, W and Y.
In my mind's eye I can see the person who was making this sitting there with a puzzled expression, holding up the letter, looking at it one way and then the other, rotating it, it flipping it, shrugging their shoulders and then... oops!
Most of these signs appear to use a similar serif font which means all the craftsman (if that's not too specific a word here) needs to do is consult that alphabet, or a similar cut, to double check before he/she starts welding.
Ah... but check out the image top right for Mayward House, Pentonville Rd – one maker just wasn't sure which way round to put the A on Mayward so gave us both options. Hey, I suppose it balances the flipped M and the flipped U in HOUSE (not shown). Note also the spectacular letter-spacing across MAYWARD – all-in-all this is a truly sublime example of this kind.
I also have some evidence of school gates with flipped letters. Yes, schools. I will dig those out and post them anothe rday.
In addition to flipped letters I have also spotted an error in a huge sign that runs across City and Islington College at the top end of Goswell Road near the Angel Islington road junction. As you can see the S is upsidedown – it's been rotated. Go check you Gill aphabet people the bowl at the top should be smaller than the bowl at the bottom. Stands to reason really. Otherwise, like here it becomes top heavy.

Oops – What the Dairy is Going on Here?

After visiting the National Gallery (see my last post) I walked up Whitcomb Street to the library on Orange street where I was verbally abused by a mentally challenged man of the street. But that's another story.
The two-sided Dairy sign is still there...
But, er...

Top row 2009, bottom row Feb 2017

Perhaps the D fell off and had to be reattached...?
But it's upside-down!
Was it some kind of bright idea to get the verticals aligned at the front edge?
Why not go the whole hog and spin the R too?

Ideas about a tiled doorway at The Hot Wok, 265 Caledonian Road, N1

You are probably already aware that I like to find nice old tiles or mosaics especially with the original company name embedded within them. Here is a link to a particularly good collection I put together earlier this year.
This post is about a tiled doorway in Caledonian Road

The lovely green and cream tiles in this particular entrance are approx 100 years old and are in stark contrast to the fast food outlet that these days occupies the ground floor here.
The mosaic doorway has been as good as vandalised by subsequent owners; the first word having been obliterated, but in a half-arsed way. Surely it would have been easier just to have covered the whole thing?!
I know that a while back this shop was a butcher's but I am pretty sure this was not the primary owner.
I have been looking at this today trying to work out what name could have been on the top line. It's clearly a short name of only four or five letters ending in "ts".... but where is the possessive apostrophe? Surely a family name as in Evan's Stores or similar would make better sense?
But hold the front page!  I may be onto something here!!
I was just about to ask for ideas but just as I wrote the above and studied the shape of the first letter I had a "Eureka!" moment...
I believe it starts with a "B" and so it's very possible that this could be an old Boot's the Chemist Store.
See below for ref of Boots old logo and signage; it's a strong possibility. But I was wrong. That's not a B, it's an F – I subsequently looked further into this and found out it was a Frost's grocery store

As well as photos of old ghostsigns I also old tins which include the ones shown here illustrating how Boots changed adapted their logo using 'Chemists' or 'Drug Co Ltd' within the underscore.

Hmmm... I'm now thinking the shop doorway name doesn't have an underscore under the first word and I might be totally wrong here.
What do you think? Could it be a Boots Store? Do you have other ideas or, better still, some facts... please do get in touch.

I have a collection of other mosaic obliterations. I will collect them together and save them for another day. UPDATE: It's a Frosts store... Frosts was a small chain of grocery shops

The London Apprentice / 333 Mother Bar, Old Street, Hoxton

I was just having a tidy up and found this pic I snapped a few months ago of the original tiled entrance of this Hoxton venue.

The sinuous organic feel of the letterform dates it to the Art Nouveau era (approx 1890-1910). A bit of sleuthing confirms that the building was completed in 1895, however, I am finding it hard to marry up any of the external architectural features within these images – perhaps at some point it was rebuilt and only the floor was retained...?!  Doubt it.

Lots more wordy doorway mosaics here. Or just click on the relevant tags below or to the left

Jane's Advent Calendar – 23rd December

Elegant numbers badly painted in Wilton Crescent, Belgravia, SW1

Jane's Advent Calendar – 21st December

Sort of the same as yesterday really, but a bit different.
Soho, London W1.

Old market barrows at Lower Marsh

This is the continuation of a post I wrote earlier this month about the changes to Lower Marsh, a market street situated just behind Waterloo Station.

I found a few of the old wooden market barrows near the pedestrian access to Leake Street. These once-loved and carefully maintained mobile market stalls are now sitting in amongst a lot of rubbish and hence have attracted the graffiti taggers.
On closer inspection I noticed the original barrow owners' names and addresses or market locations carved into the wooden frames. And somewhere on every one: 'On Hire'.

I am still trying to fully decipher some the names because the hand-carved scripts are hard to read – note the non-joined areas within the m and h of 'Lambeth'.
Of the road names, Fitzalan Street (shown bottom right) is just a short walk away from Lower Marsh, ditto Lambeth Walk which was also a bustling market street decades ago but today shows no real signs of life today. But, so far, I cannot find out anything about Topaz Street, shown second on the bottom row. Holland St, top right, is a bit further away in Southwark at Bankside.
The owners' names are even harder to decipher; possibly 'A Heehn' (second, top), A H Pelin (top right), M J Tala... (middle right). Any ideas?
And how old are these barrows? When do they date back to? If they aren't going to be used any more what's going to happen to them?

New header and slight redesign for Jane's London

As you can see, I have been busy making a Jane's London header for the site using images of lettering, mosaics, coal holes and doorbells.
Below is one of my usual montages showing the same images, plus another doorbell.

Wholesale electrical components, fluorescent lamps and switchgear

In June 2008 a friend alerted me to the unveiling of some lovely old hand-painted shop signs on 136 Grays Inn Road. The shop was being renovated and the plain wooden fascias that had been in place for decades had been removed to reveal some lovely lettering showing that in an earlier life the shop had been home to an electrical components retailer (see below, top left and top middle).
Later that same year I took some more photos when all the signs were more visible. Crackled paint, drop shadows. Lovely.
We hoped that these old signs would continue to be visible in the future but they were covered up again. I think they were initially covered with more boards. I think the site became a cafe. (Peter, please correct me here if I am wrong please!)
Two months ago I was in Grays Inn Road again. I stopped in my tracks when I saw what it looks like now – the shop is up for sale/rent, having spent a while as a hairdressers. White gloss has been applied straight over the top of the lovely old lettering and, at certain angles, the words can be seen ghosting through the paint. The bottom right image shows the 'components/switchgear' panel.
Is this progress?
I am sad. Very sad. :-(

Paralympics, August, London 2012.

I put a collection of relevant Paralympic pics together a while ago here.
But this post is not about anything London or sporty it's about logo design.
I have already written here about my disdain for that awful London 2012 logo with its lower case L for London and that redundant square in the middle, but enough of that... this is about the Paralympic logo; the Agitos.
For a few years now I have been collecting snaps of what I call lazy logo designs. And the Agitos fits into this mould...
It appears that there is a simple formula to creating a logo and anyone can do it – all you need to do is write the name of the company and then add a shape, reminiscent of the Nike swoosh, over, under or around the name using the negative space created by two overlapping ellipses. Genius! If you can't fathom the overlapping ellipse thing simply re-draw the shape as best you can, just like in the Agitos version.
Look around you; these things are everywhere.
Below is a screengrab of just a few of the ones I have on file.
The Agitos logo, takes this process further and just repeats the elliptical element, without words, to give, I assume, an impression of movement, agitos being the Latin for 'I move'. See how they've managed to squeeze it in beautifully with the other elements to form the Paralympic Games 2012 logo. Nice! Not.
I may have to give up my day job.

I've been ill

This is not about London... it's all about me. Me me me!

Last Tuesday I was hit with a violent hayfever attack that felt like a bunch of daffs were being rammed against the back of my head. Odd, cos I hadn't had hayfever in about 5 years. Then the next morning it took almost an hour to get from the bed to vertical... I managed to get dressed but gave up and went back to bed in all my clothes suffering aches and pains, shivering, spasms etc... it was flu. Proper flu. 

The sneezing seemed to have exacerbated an old hip problem which meant I had problems sitting down then trying to stand up again, with shooting pains going up and down my body. I felt debilitated, old and useless. It's horrible when our bodies let us down like this; we take them for granted until something goes wrong and we find that can't do the simplest everyday things. 

I'm now seeing an osteopath. He's great. Things are getting better. Much better. And walking is good. Proper stepping out walking. So I am off out for a walk now... 

Normal service will be resumed in due course.

All these pics have ILL in them:

World Shakespeare Festival

An international festival starts today to celebrate the Bard.
It's his birthday you know. He's 448 today.
You might have read about him or heard about one of his plays. He wrote quite a few of them.
For those who have never heard of him (!!!) it's all in the link above or here.
Below are some of my Shakespeare-related images. The top row shows a pub, a theatre, a house and another pub. Perhaps you might know where they are?
The next two rows hint at Shakespeare plays – "prizes" to those who can identify the plays and/or the locations shown.

An Alphabet of London

I recently got a copy of Christopher Brown's book 'An Alphabet of London'.
This little gem is filled with Christopher's lovely, simple and effective lino cut illustrations depicting approx six different London locations for each letter of the alphabet.
The main part of the book is the A-Z but I loved reading the first section of the book where he tells us about growing up in 1950s London and taking in, and being inspired, by all the wonderful sights and experiences that London had to offer him. And, towards the end of the book is a section about his creative processes, which reminded me of when I made lino cuts in the art room at school all those years back. It really is a pleasing and absorbing process, working as you have to, in negative, and achieving a different end result every time.
The Gentle Author has written a really good, and more in-depth, review of the book here which also shows some of the illustations.
I can't compete with any lino cut illustrations of my own so here are some close-ups of As, Bs, Cs and Ds that appear on signs throughout Central London.
Perhaps you can recognise some of them? Or cheat, and find (most of) them here.

The London Column

If you haven't discovered The London Column yet, then get with the programme now... because it's a gem of a site.

The strapline at the top reads, "Reports from the life of a city, 1951-2011, by David Secombe", and it's just that.

It's only been up and running since May this year but it's already packed full of gems and snippets of London life and observations. I have particularly enjoyed reading the excerpts by written by V.S.Pritchett in 1962; especially the one about the Blitz.

One thing that intrigues me about this lovely site, and that's David's logo top right... from 70s–90s, there was a magazine about typography called U&Lc that had its logo in more or less the same style. I suspect the logo design for The London Column has been created as a fond pastiche... very clever!

Here are some nice bits of typography I have found in London:

Top: Kings Cross, Fulham, Marylebone, Clapham.

Middle: Covent Garden, Finsbury Park (now sadly covered up/removed), Islington, Soho (I think this isn't there any more either – I will check).

Bottom: Stoke Newington, Blackfriars, Bermondsey, Temple.

The Art of Walking

Last Saturday I went on one of Fox&Squirrel's walks. F&S offer 'lifestyle walks' all over London themed around fashion, architecture, food etc.

This one was an art walk in Peckham, an area of London that is now bursting with creative talent, no doubt brought on by cheap rent and available space.

Our guide was Natasha, a very erudite and knowledgeable young lady, who met us outside the award-winning Peckham Library. First we visited Peckham Space, opposite the library and then she walked us up the road (passing a relevant bit of cement graffiti) to the lovely Passmore Edwards South London Art Gallery – a free purpose-built gallery space built by the great philanthropist. I was much more interested in the building than the art inside it. I loved the As and Hs on the sign on the front of the building, and found the old Pugin-esque floor tiles, the painted sockets and the old sign board in the back courtyard way more inspiring than what was on show.

Then we walked down Lyndhurst Way and stopped to look at the cleaned-up house that was once a famous squat for artists. Around the corner I noticed a stink pipe. Relevant? Then to a space functioning as both a home and a gallery where we watched two looped films of images of cars and lorries going down the freeway but manipulated into endless tunnels. It was mesmerising. But again, free, though the fella had opened the door especially for our group as it wasn't normally open on Saturdays.

Bells were ringing in my head about whether this 2 hour walk was good value (I spotted an old alarm bell casing showing the old Bishopsgate telephone code!) – after all nothing had an entrance fee, and using a South London Art Map this would cost nothing at all. But I was having a nice time with nice people...

And so to the Hannah Barry Gallery, almost buried amongst a sea of semi-derelict buildings in an old industrial estate. The highlight of my day was meeting the wonderful Hannah Barry herself. Diminutive Hannah belies her size and age – she is a powerhouse of ideas and enthusiasm. She talked eloquently and sensibly about art and galleries. And I loved the metal sculptures there by James Capper.

Then to a bar in one of the arches under Peckham Rye Station for art chat.

A nice afternoon. Thanks.

Letterpool London - Typographical imagery

Just realised I forgot to mention something within my recent post about Neville Brody's Anti Design Festival...

I meant to link to Letterpool London where four of the pics in the Gallery of 100 are mine! Let's hope the London book comes out soon and is as successful as the Liverpool one.

And here are more of my 'typography' tagged photos on Flickr.