Here is the “Prospect of Whitby” pub by the Thames in Wapping.
“The Prospect of Whitby” sketched 21 August 2024 at 2pm, the first picture in Sketchbook 15
The “Prospect of Whitby” is the name of a ship.
The coal boat, “Prospect of Whitby”, from the pub sign.
There is an informative entry about the whole area in “The London Inheritance” website. He writes:
“The pub was originally called The Pelican and the alley and stairs down to the river at the side of the pub to the right are still named Pelican Stairs.“
This structure is visible from the North side of the Regents Canal at Coal Drops yard. It was a “water point” for replenishing the boilers of steam engines. The top housed a water tank.
Waterpoint, seen from the Regents Canal towpath at Coal Drops. August 14th 2024, in sketch book 14
Here’s a map to show where it is. I’ve seen this structure often when walking along the canal, and it’s been on my “sketch-list” for a while, so I was glad that a co-incidence of weather and time gave me the opportunity to sketch it.
Waterpoint, circled.
I was sketching from the Regents Canal towpath right next to St Pancras Lock.
Sketching Waterpoint, looking south across St Pancras Lock.
It turns out that this structure is open to visitors from time to time. By an amazing co-incidence, one of the visiting days was the weekend after I did my sketch. The kind and informative guides there patiently answered the many questions I had, and allowed me to photograph their video and their display boards.
For me, the really fascinating thing about this structure is that it has moved. It was not always in this location. It used to be next to St Pancras Station. It was built around the same time as the station, 1870. In 2001 it was moved North, to its current location.
It was designed by team of Sir George Gilbert Scott, who designed the St Pancras Hotel. Since its purpose was to fill the tanks of steam trains, it was right next to the railway lines. You can see it here:
Photo of a video shown at the Waterpoint.
Here it is on an 1871 map: (click to enlarge)
my annotations to show the original position next to St Pancras, and the current positionOn the 1871 map it is labelled “Pumping House”1871 map on display at the Waterpoint (copyright National Library of Scotland)
I think I can spot it on this archive aerial photo from 1964. Here is the link to the picture:
The water point is just beyond the far right hand edge of the St Pancras train shed, in the centre left of the photo on the link above.
Here are some low resolution images to help you find it.
Detail from the aerial photo above. The gas holders shown in these photos have also moved.
Here are modern maps annotated to show the original position and the current position:
Google map. Waterpoint moved A to B.Waterpoint moved A to B. Gasholders moved X to Y. map (c) openstreetmap contributors
To move it, the original Water Point was cut horizontally into three sections. The lower section was left behind. A new lower section was built in the new location. The middle and upper sections went by road to the new location and were stacked on top of the newly built lower section. You can see, by changes in the bricks, the joins between the sections.
The new lower section is clearly visible.The line of new bricks at the top marks the join between the middle and upper sectionsView of the south side of the Waterpoint, annotated to show the sections
On the side of the Waterpoint visible from the canal, there is a clear “roof” pattern in the bricks, which I noticed when sketching it.
This marks the position of a shed that was fastened to the structure in its original position. See the pictures below.
Original position – note the shed on the left What was left when it was moved.The display boards show the project to move the Water Point. These are 2001 photos.
These photos and maps show how much the area has changed. See all the gas holders! They were constructed on the south side of the Regents Canal, because that’s where the gas works was. They originally held coal gas, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen, manufactured from coal. Until 2010 they were a landmark for anyone who made this journey into Kings Cross regularly.
Here’s a frame from the 1963 film “Alfie” captured by @runningthenorthernheights, showing the gasholders in their original position.
Thanks to @runningthenorthernheights
The gasholders were decommissioned in 2000, but several of them couldn’t be destroyed because they were listed, so they just stood there for ten years. Then they were dismantled, stored, preserved and reconstructed in the years 2010-2015. They are now on the north side of the Regents Canal. Gas holder No. 8 was the first to be reconstructed, in 2015. It surrounds a small park. Gas holders 10, 11 and 12 followed, surrounding luxury apartments, part of the Kings Cross development. (https://www.kingscross.co.uk/gasholder-park)
Gasholders seen from the top of the Waterpoint, August 2024. I did the sketch from the far side of the canal.
Here are more photos from my visit to Waterpoint in August 2024.
Ball cock in the (now empty!) tank on the topView from the topView from the topThe “chimney” up close. The guide is explaining that it is purely decorative. It is solid: there’s no “chimney”.
I was very glad to have the opportunity to visit this quirky building. Recommended!
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This is the Sutton Arms in Clerkenwell, 16 Great Sutton Street, EC1.
Sutton Arms, 16 Great Sutton Street, EC1V 0DH, sketched 10 August 2024 in Sketchbook 14
I sketched it towards the end of a sunny afternoon in August, sitting on steps outside number 6 Berry Street. As you see, the sun streamed in from the west. The trees in the distance, on the left of the drawing, are on Clerkenwell Road. Behind them is The Charterhouse, fulfilling its ancient tradition as an arms house and sanctuary for the elderly and frail.
From 1611 to 1995, The Charterhouse owned the whole of this area.
Great Sutton Street area. The broken red line indicates the extent of the former Charterhouse estate. Image from British History Online [reference 2] annotated.
The Charterhouse sold this land in 1995. A developer bought up the land and built factories and warehouses. In the 21st century a new wave of developers transformed former warehouse blocks into apartments and offices. I sketched sitting outside one such: 6 Berry Street is residential apartments. This is now an area for architects and interior designers.
There was a pub here by 1825 [1]. It was rebuilt in 1897 [2]. It’s now a Free House. It’s clearly well looked after and well patronised. Definitely to be visited! The flowers are spectacular.
Spectacular flowers of the Sutton Arms.
Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) was the founder of the Charterhouse, hence the name of the road and the name of the pub. This is the Sutton Arms in Clerkenwell, north of The Charterhouse. There is also a Sutton Arms south of The Charterhouse, in Carthusian Street, near Barbican tube.
The pub sign is Sutton’s coat of arms. His motto is:
DEO DANTE DEDI
The translation is “God having given, I give”, or “As God has given to me, so I give in my turn”, a good motto for the benefactor that he was. The pub sign misses off the “O” in DEO and the “I” in DEDI.
Sutton Arms pub sign: “DE[o] DANTE DED[i]”Thomas Sutton’s Coat of Arms. See the greyhound. Source: Charterhouse School on Wikipedia
The “Survey of London ” [2] gives a detailed history of this area, which has alternately flourished and decayed over the centuries. It is currently flourishing.
I completed the ink on location and finished the colour at my desk. The colours are:
Fired Gold Ochre (bricks)
Ultramarine Blue and Phthalo Blu (Green shade) (sky)
Serpentine Genuine (trees)
Mars Yellow (road and bricks)
Ultramarine Blue plus Burnt Umber (blacks and greys)
Transparent Pyrrole Orange (flowers, street signs)
The changing fortunes of the Great Sutton Street area.
In the 14th century this area was fields, owned by a Carthusian Priory. There was a mortuary chapel, called “Pardon Chapel” for saying the last rites for criminals and suicides. Henry VIII eradicated the Carthusian Priory in 1538 (“Dissolution of the Monasteries”) and it passed into private hands, along with the land. It became known at “The Charterhouse”. Thomas Sutton, a wealthy businessman, bought the Charterhouse in 1611. He died that year. His will provided for the hospital and almshouse that are still there. The Charterhouse leased the land outside its walls to developers, who built houses. “By 1687, when the Charterhouse estate was thoroughly mapped by William Mar, almost the whole had been laid out in streets of small terrace houses—242 houses in all, with yards, gardens and sheds.” [2] These terraces set the street pattern for the small streets that are there today. The lattice continued to the walls of The Charterhouse. Clerkenwell Road was cut through much later, in the 1870s. Then commerce moved in and a hundred years passed. By the 1700s, the area was a mix of residences and industries: “In 1731 Philip Humphreys, the Charterhouse gardener [..]complained of the adverse effect on his crops of smoke ‘from so many neighbouring Brewhouses, Distillers and Pipe-makers lately set up’ in the vicinity.” Thus we see that NIMBYism is not a new phenomenon. A new developer (Pullin) came in and rebuilt, and more and larger factories were built. Again, the neighbours complained: “Already by the 1820s some houses were giving way to further industrial developments, including slaughterhouses, a dye-house, breweries, and vinegar, vitriol and gas works. Complaints were made to the Charterhouse in 1832 about the nuisance of these works and their steam engines, and to the Vestry in the 1850s about the ‘boiling of putrid meat and other offal’ and blood running into the drains.” Building continued. Eventually government intervened: “Extensive redevelopment of the Charterhouse estate followed remarks in 1884–5 by the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes as to the badness of the houses there. […] Charterhouse was criticized for allowing [..]the incidence of house-farmers, severe overcrowding and badly constructed, poorly ventilated housing to continue on its property. One house in Allen Street was found to be occupied by thirty-eight people, eleven of them in one small room; similar conditions were found in the cottages of Slade’s Place. Many of these properties were occupied by costermongers with ‘very precarious’ earnings (whom the Commission felt would do better ‘if they kept from drink’).[2]” The Charterhouse governors eventually took action. The small houses were demolished, and replaced by factories and warehouses. This time the trades were less polluting: “Among early occupants were clothing manufacturers: milliners, mantle-makers and collar-makers, leather manufacturers, glove-makers and furriers. The printing trade was also well represented, along with book-binding, engraving and stationery manufacture. Continuing a long-standing tradition were several butchers and tripedressers.” By now we are in the early 1900s. About a dozen buildings were destroyed by bombing in the 1939-45 conflict, and replaced in the 1950 and 1960s by factories and warehouses. The Survey of London [2] reports that the area was “considerably run down” in 1995 when the Charterhouse sold it to developers. The developers started a programme of warehouse conversions, to apartments and offices, which transformed the area, and moved it back upmarket. And that’s where we are today. (The above is my summary of the more detailed description in reference [2])
[Reference 2 fig 402] Warehouse developments of the 1890s by Mark and Albert Bromet and others at the corner of Berry Street (Nos 12–14, left) and Great Sutton Street (Nos 44–49)The same site today. (Google Street view). Above street level, this is residential. I met one of the residents while sketching. I was sitting on the steps of the entrance to her block, centre left.
[2] British History Online: ‘Great Sutton Street area’, in Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell, ed. Philip Temple( London, 2008), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp280-293 [accessed 2 September 2024].
“[built] to guide vessels to port, this was originally carried out by the harbour pilots via loudhailer from a platform built into the roof of the original 2-storey structure, or by a system of wicker balls suspended from a pole rising from the platform.” [1]
“Entrance to Aberdeen Harbour” by James Cassie (1819–1879) image copyright: Aberdeen Maritime Museum
“The control tower was added in 1966 and a radar system was introduced in 1974. The structure was further updated in 1986 at which time the Queen unveiled a plaque, situated to the right of the main entrance to the tower, commemorating ‘850 years of Harbour History’.” [1]
It was in use until the Marine Operations Centre opened in 2006 [4]. This is nearer the sea, just visible behind the lamp-post in my drawing. It handles about 25000 boat movements a year, which averages at 60 a day [2]. For comparison, Heathrow air traffic control centre handles abut 200000 aircraft movements a year or 500 a day [3]. The area managed by the Marine Control Centre extends 2.3 nautical miles around the headland to the South of the harbour [5]. So the Operations Centre handles not just boats going in and out, but boats moving around inside and outside the harbour as well.
MV Hrossey leaving the port of Aberdeen, photo copyright southspear media, used with permission [6] The Roundhouse, circled, is on the left, and the Marine Operations Centre is above the centre of the ship. This is the Northlink ferry, sailing to the Northern Isles.
I sketched this on a stunning hot day, sitting on a bench by the quay.
The Roundhouse. The modern Marine Operations Centre is the tall white building behind and to the left. In front of it, and lower down behind the cars, is the restaurant “The Silver Darling”.
Three years ago, on a very different day, I made a much quicker sketch:
A quick sketch on a stormy rainy day, sketching from the shelter of a doorway. June 25th 2021.
[5] Port of Aberdeen Vessel Traffic Services extent: “All shipping movements within the Aberdeen VTS area (within 2.3nm from Girdleness) are controlled by Aberdeen VTS. Participation with VTS is mandatory, for further details please see ALRS Vol.6.” https://www.portofaberdeen.co.uk/port-information/marine
[6] Thank you to Nick McCaffrey of Southspear media for permission to use his amazing photograph of MV Hrossey leaving the port of Aberdeen.
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It was foggy, cold and wet outside. I made pigments.
I collected earth from round about. I know from previous attempts that it works best if you have fine earth. So I went up the road in the rain and scooped up the fine silt running off a track. I dried it indoors, and then crushed it to what I hoped was a fine powder.
As you see I had an excellent beach stone for this purpose.
Then to grind it finer I had a pestle and mortar. This is a beautiful home-made item.
Now I have earth pigment. To make watercolour I add Schmincke Watercolour Binder in the ration of 2 parts binder to 1 part pigment. Mix and put in a limpet shell. It’s ready to use immediately as a paste, or it dries and can be rewetted like normal pan watercolours. Here are the paints drying:
Pigment mixes in limpet shells, drying on eggs cups (to keep them level).
Above you see paints made of earth from different places. At the front is a paint made from yellow lichen. The lichen was bright yellow on the stone wall. I couldn’t find a way to separate out the bright yellow surface from the grey underneath, so the pigment is a grey/yellow mix.
Here is a selection of pigment experiments, to show how they look when painted:
Making the charcoal pigment was not so effective as I thought it would be. I found a small chunk of black charcoal from the grate and proceeded to crush it. This produced skittering fragments and airborne dust which settled everywhere. It did not produce a fine powder in my pestle and mortar. It produced hard, flaky, bits. As you see above, the paint it produced was granular and not very black.
Trying to grind the charcoalGround charcoal: bitsCharcoal paint
Here is a picture painted entirely with home-made pigments:
Coastal scene: painted with home-made pigments.
Here is a picture painted with home-made pigments and shop-bought watercolours:
“Promontory”. Painted with home-made watercolours with shop-bought watercolour (blue).
This is the binder I used:
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I don’t want to give the impression that Shetland is littered with abandoned cars. It’s not. But there are certain hidden areas I’ve discovered which are car graveyards, and I now go there deliberately. I find something vaguely poetic, evocative, about an abandoned car in a wide pristine landscape. It’s as though the landscape frames it: puts a picture frame around it and says look! This twisted metal is art.
“look! this twisted metal is art.”
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It was foggy and cold. I practised drawing clouds.
Islands in clouds
I went for a walk.
In the distance on the left is the island of Vaila. Here is Vaila in the fog.
Vaila in the fog
The speckled effect is the result of fine rain on watercolour.
When the sun shines in Shetland, it is magical. Part of the magic is that you know it is ephemeral. When the sun shines in Shetland, you have to get out there, right now. The clouds come quickly. But while the sun shines, enjoy it.
Footabrough, from the path to the Virda Stane, Shetland West sideWesterwickSketching at Meal Beach, West Burra
Minn beach
The sun shone on a visit to Hamnavoe. There is a nearby beach called “Minn Beach”. The water is clear and the sand is white.
The light was dazzling. The water was cold: just over 10 degrees C. Swimming, I could see the grains of sand on the sea bed, perfectly clearly. As I swam on the surface of the water, it was as if I was flying over the sand. Except for the cold.
Minn Beach is on West Burra. See map below.
Further south is St Ninians, an island at the end of a long sand tombolo (sand bridge).
photograph looking towards St Ninians. To get an idea of distances, click to enlarge and find the people at the far end of the sand tombolo.
From the island, sheltering from the wind in the lee of a wall, I sketched Fitful Head.
Fitful Head from St Ninians.Fitful Head from St Ninians, detail.
Even though the wind shifts the pages and disrupts my lines, even when the rain speckles my colours and blurs the clean edges I drew, even though the view changes by the minute and I find it impossible to catch the glory of the light and the magnificent shape of the land, even though my sketchbook is small and my skills are limited, despite all those things, I think it’s always worth having a go at drawing. The pictures I draw remind me of being there. Of the wind, the rain, the changing clouds, the glorious light and the vast, curving headland.
On St Ninians isle
Paint palette by Classic Paintboxes
Colours by Daniel Smith and Schmincke
Paintbrushes by Rosemary brushes and Seawhite
Watercolour sketchbook by JP Purcell (190gsm, A5, cold-pressed)
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Foula is a small island 20 miles off the west coast of mainland Shetland. Shetland is a group of islands about 200 miles north of Scotland.
300 miles from Aberdeen to ShetlandFoula is 20 miles off the West coast of ShetlandFoula: an island 3 miles by 2 miles. Arrow shows where I stayed.
I had seen Foula, from a distance, on previous visits to Shetland. It floats on the horizon, mysterious.
Foula, seen from Mainland Shetland
So I had to visit. What is it like there?
Here is a Foula scene:
Foula: sketched at Da Punds, between the Wind Turbines and the Airstrip.
I sketched this sitting on one of the stones, on a bit of flat and marshy land towards the south of the island. The road is in front of me, at the foot of those hills.
I had to sketch this in a bit of a rush, because, as I rapidly discovered, this particular area is the province of the Skua. There are Great Skua and Artic Skua: large birds, who do not like sketchers sitting on stones in their neighbourhood. They make their irritation known by aggressive fly-pasts. I could hear the wind in their feathers: it sounded like a chain saw. So I quickly took the hint and made for the road. Locals later told me I should “carry a stick above my head”, to distract the skua. That’s all very well, but finding a stick on Foula is about as likely as finding a branch of Pret. There are no trees atall on this part of the island, so no handy lengths of wood.
Other inhabitants of Foula were more welcoming, including the friendly people. The sheep are unafraid, and came towards me as I walked. The horses too seemed pleased to see me. I met the person who is one of the breeders of these horses on the island. “Pat them, talk to them, but don’t feed them!” she instructed me. Feeding them in the wrong order disrupts their established hierarchy and causes fights, she explained. “And,” she added, with emphasis, “make sure you close the gate!!”. There followed stories of visitors leaving gates open, and the subsequent escapades of the stallion, who visited mares he was not supposed to visit….
Foula is an industrious place, I discovered. As well as horse breeding, and sheep breeding, there is spinning to produce special Foula Wool, peat cutting, and a lot of horticulture. Also there is a school, a lighthouse, a ferry and an airstrip. The air strip needs a fire crew, as well as pilots. The school has a teacher. There are wind turbines and a very effective 5G mobile signal mast, with big dishes directed at mainland Shetland. This is a lot of activity for a place of only 35 inhabitants, especially as six of those inhabitants are primary school children.
The plane and the fire truck on the airstrip at Foula
Horticulture takes place in polytunnels and inside abandoned cars. As on mainland Shetland, vegetables and flowers will grow, so long as you can shelter them from the wind. I was given local raspberries from a polytunnel at the school.
It was rather foggy when I visited, so I opted for lowland routes and did not climb the formidable mountains shown in the picture above. Had I done so, I would have seen the famous 1000ft sea cliff. But I was wary. I did not want to stumble across the famous cliff in the fog.
Sketching in the fog
I was staying at “Ristie self-catering”, in the North of the island. Here is the scenery round there.
The edge of the world.
Foula on the horizon
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“The Coach” Clerkenwell, Sketched 20th June 2024 in Sketchbook 14
I sketched this after I had sketched “Gunmakers” in nearby Eyre Street Hill. Above the pub sign is a model, just visible on the right of my drawing.
The Coach pub sign: a gun carriage?
The model is a gun carriage. I wondered what the connection was to The Coach, and if there was any connection to Gunmakers on Eyre Street Hill. But no, it is the symbol of The Cannon Brewery. This brewery was founded 1720, in nearby St John Street. It was acquired by Taylor Walker in 1930. I have this information from http://breweryhistory.com. So that explains the cannon.
At the top of the pub, the medallion names the pub as “The Coach and Horses” in white relief work.
The pub website says: “The Coach was established in 1790, and has been at the heart of the lively Clerkenwell community for generations.”
British History Online describes a pub called The Cock Inn, which was part of a sale in 1695:
At the time of the sale [1695], the land was mostly taken up by two fields of pasture: Gardiner’s Field to the north and the larger Sir John Oldcastle’s Field to the south. There was a cluster of buildings and a large rubbish dump or laystall in the south-eastern corner, in the area of Hockley-in-the-Hole. Chief of these buildings was the Cock inn, the forerunner of the present-day Coach and Horses in Ray Street.
The current building dates from 1897 according to this source:
All the eighteenth-century public houses in the area have been rebuilt or have disappeared entirely. The Apple Tree in Mount Pleasant was rebuilt in the 1870s, and the Coach and Horses in Ray Street in 1897
So it looks as though the pub was there already in 1695 as the Cock Inn, was established as The Coach and Horses in 1790 (according to the pub website) and rebuilt in 1897. It was renamed The Coach in 2018.
Having closed on 31st July 2015, this pub reopened on 16th January 2018 as the Coach with its Taylor Walker/Cannon Brewery sign frame retained.
People sometimes ask me how I determine the viewpoint in my sketches. Often, as here, it is determined by practical rather than artistic considerations. I need somewhere to sketch, out of the way, not in the road, and with a clear view. I don’t carry a seat, though sometimes I wish that I did. But here, like a miracle, a seat presented itself.
This perhaps had been a phone junction box, but no more. Now it was a seat. I commandeered it.
I did the pen-and-ink on location and then added the colour back at my desk.
The colours here are:
Fired Gold Ochre for the bricks
Ultramarine Blue plus Phthalo Blue Turquoise for the sky
All greys and blacks are Burnt Umber with the blues
There’s a bit of Mars Yellow in some of the brickwork and the pillars.
Jane Sketching 