The Sekforde EC1R 0HA, Clerkenwell, sketched March 2024 12″ x 9″ [commission]
This watercolour was specially commissioned to celebrate a happy event.
The colours are:
Mars Yellow
Fired Gold Ochre
Ultramarine Blue
Burnt Umber
plus some Horadam Random Grey, some Daniel Smith Green Serpentine Genuine, and Pyrrol Red for the street sign and road marker.
Gold paint for the lettering.
Admire the bricks! I am very pleased with this effect. It was done by applying a rubber resist, “pebeo drawing gum” to the paper before I did any painting. The paint does not adhere to the rubber resist. When I had done all the colour, I rubbed off the rubber resist and hey presto! bricks.
Thank you to my client for their encouraging words and for inspiring me to make this picture of The Sekforde. Here are some details of the drawing.
Clerkenwell has many interesting corners. Here is a view across St John’s Square. I sketched it earlier today, sitting on the step of the Priory Church of the Order of St John. The restaurant is called “Compton”.
View across St John’s Square, Compton restaurant, 21 June 2023, in sketchbook 13
Here’s a map:
Thank you to the kind person from the Priory Church. They emerged from the door behind me. There I was, low down on the step, at the pen-and-ink stage, with my materials laid out neatly on the stone. They obviously had not expected anyone to be sitting on the step. I had not expected anyone to come out of the dark door. It had looked as if it had been closed shut for millennia. After a moment of surprise, politeness prevailed and we both said hello. Thereafter, I grouped my materials into a compact heap, and they came and went, tolerating me amiably, and skirting around me to operate the card key system.
This picture has just four main colours: Ultramarine blue, Brown umber, Mars yellow, and Green Serpentine Genuine. The only other colour is Fired Gold Ochre for the terracotta: the chimneys and the flowerpots. All colours are Daniel Smith watercolours.
Here is work in progress:
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On a hot day, in need of healing, I re-discovered this herb garden. It is hidden away the other side of a gate off St John’s Square in Clerkenwell. The gate is open and you can walk right in. There are benches, and aromatic plants. At the back, there’s.a cloister.
I went in the cloister, and found the ideal place to sketch: cool, still, and quiet, with a view from those windows.
Here’s the view:
From the Cloister, looking into the garden, 15th June 2023, 10″ x 8″ in Sketchbook 13
The Order of St John has a long history.
By 1080, a hospital had been established in Jerusalem by a group of monks under the guidance of Brother Gerard. Its purpose was to care for the many pilgrims who had become ill on their travels to the Holy Land. The men and women who worked there were members of a new religious order, officially recognised by the Church in 1113. Known as the Hospitallers, they cared for anyone, without distinction of race or faith.
These days, this is the organisation behind St John Ambulance.
The garden is wonderful. A place of solace. People from the offices around go there to eat their lunches and also to discuss office politics I realised. But also to read books, dream, doze, and of course, to sketch. There is a book stand by the gate as you go in, with secondhand books you can borrow or buy.
I’ve sketched in this garden a few years ago, from a slightly different viewpoint:
I drew this in the Cloister Garden of the Museum of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell, a beautiful tranquil place on a hot day. It was a very hot day, and I’d left the flat in some irritation, after a series of frustrations, mostly computer-related.…
My sketch shows the backs of houses on Albemarle Way. This street and others nearby feature in the novel “Troubled Blood” by Robert Galbraith.
I looked back at the houses as I walked through the garden on my way out. I saw that one of them claims “Ancient Lights”. That’s asserting the right to light, and was a way in law to prevent anyone constructing a tall building which obstructed your windows. It’s “ancient” because you had to have enjoyed the benefit of the light for 20 years or more before you could assert “Ancient Lights”. This has now been superseded by “modern planning laws” I read. But maybe we should put some “ancient lights” notices on the windows of our flat, just to be sure.
Here are maps:
The drawing took three hours. By the end of that time, my mood had transformed itself, and I walked out healthier than I walked in.
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Next time you are walking along St John St, look out for this dome, with the elephant wind vane. It’s on the West side, just a bit further North than the White Bear pub.
77 St John St EC1M, 9″ x 7″ in Sketchbook 13, 17th March 2023
I can’t find out anything about why there’s an elephant up there. The wind vane is on number 77 St John St, currently occupied by, amongst others, ASLEF the train drivers union, and “Liberation – Justice for Colombia”
JFC was set up in 2002 by the British trade union movement to support Colombian civil society in its struggle for human rights, labour rights, peace and social justice.
All JFC work is carried out in response to the demands of our partners in Colombia: the political activists, trade unionists, peasant organisations, human rights defenders, and other civil society groups who are on the front line in demanding peace and social justice.
JFC promotes links of solidarity between British and Irish trade unions and organisations in Colombia and gives a political voice internationally to Colombian civil society through our work in the British, Irish and EU Parliaments
The building in the centre of my drawing is numbers 69, 71 and 73 St John St. These buildings are listed Grade II, list entry no: 1195730.
In 2015 there was an application to build another floor on top of number 69, for residential use. As part of the planning submission, the applicant commissioned a detailed historical study from Paul Edwards, Dip Arch (Oxford) IHBC, Historic Environment Specialist. His 15-page report provides fascinating information about the houses. For example:
Nos 69-73 are depicted in Tallis London Street View, drawn 1838-1840, … There were three bays, at the centre an alley leading to an internal yard flanked by buildings of three storeys and attics, each with two windows each side of the alley. The facades had classical Georgian or Regency proportions, with tall sash windows at 1st and second floor levels and continuous small pane shop windows at ground floor level. A gambrel roof was set behind an eaves parapet. The northern house was leased by John Newton a cork manufacturer who took over the whole premises and whose firm remained there until the First World War. The ground floor front of No 69 was re-modelled in the mid-19th century with arched openings and Ionic pilasters in stucco. The shop front of No 73 dates from 1884. There had been a fire in the cork warehouse in 1882 which was then partly rebuilt with No 69 being extended over the alley between the two houses. In 1896 the two buildings were made into one.
Paul Edwards, 69 St John Street, Islington, Historic Asset Assessment (Version 1) February 2015.
Roni’s Café, 39 Clerkenwell Road, 15th Feb 2022, 10″ x 8″ in Sketchbook 11
In the centre of the picture is Roni’s Café, where I sheltered to finish my drawing of 84 Clerkenwell Road.
My idea was to draw the view looking West along the Clerkenwell Road, from number 84. By the time I reached the spot, the rain was falling heavily. I spotted a large window. The people inside kindly agreed to host me for 45 minutes while I sketched my lines. Then I went out into the rain. I finished the picture at my desk.
This building is at the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Albermarle Way.
84 Clerkenwell Road, EC1M, 21st January 2022, 14:30, 7″x 10″ in Sketchbook 11
The land, on the recently established Clerkenwell Road, was bought in 1879 by a jeweller, Edward Culver, who funded a new factory for his business on in this rapidly developing area. The building cost £11,ooo, and was finished in October 1879. His business occupied it until about 1894. (from British History online, see Note 1)
In 1915, the ground floor and basement were converted for use by the “London County & Westminster Bank” (Note 1). This turned out to be a long tenancy. A photo in the London Picture Archives shows that a descendant of the same bank, the National Westminster Bank, was there in 1976. (Notes 2 and 3).
The ground floor is now a design company, “Frem”. Before that, it was a hairdressers. The building is labelled “The Printworks” but I am unable to discover when, or indeed if, it was a printworks.
I sketched the building from the corner of the Clerkenwell Road and St John’s Lane. On the other side of the road, I saw a man come and lay out a large flexible chess mat on the stone bench in St John’s Square.
Later, a woman appeared at my elbow carrying a green metal chair. “Would you like to sit down while you draw?” she asked. I would indeed. She told me she was from the café just up the road. Very grateful, I sat down and continued sketching. By the time I’d finished the pen sketch, there were several dozen people clustered round the bench in St John’s Square. There were now many chess sets laid out. And I was very cold.
Pencil underdrawingThe chairPenPen, chess players centre left, just above the book.Chess players on the stone bench.
Roni’s Cafe: warm and friendly
I picked up the green chair and went to the café to give it back. It was warm and friendly in there, so I stopped for a coffee. I learned that the chess players come every Saturday. First there were just a few, now there are dozens. The youngest is 7 years old. As I drank my coffee, some of the chess players came into the café, hopping from one leg to the other with the cold, as I had done earlier. They bought takeaway coffee or hot chocolate, left a phone to charge up by the till, and took off again to join the fray.
The friendly proprietor of the café admired my picture and pointed out that I could see the building, if I took a certain table by the window. “Then you can do the colour”, she said. I could. She brought a cup of water, a porcelain saucer, and a large amount of paper towel. This is a lady who knows what watercolour painters need. A mug of tea arrived as well. Comfortable and warm, I continued my sketch.
Putting on the colour in Roni’s Café
If some of these road names seem familiar to you, it might be because this area is the setting for much of the story in the novel “Troubled Blood” by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling.
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Note 1: 84 Clerkenwell Road, early history: ‘Clerkenwell Road’, in Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell, ed. Philip Temple (London, 2008), pp. 385-406. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp385-406 [accessed 22 January 2022].
Note 2: 1976 photo: London Picture Archive, Record 60792, on this link
Note 3: NatWest Group has an excellent History section on its website: https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage.html?intcam=. The current “NatWest” is the result of the acquisition of over 250 banks over several centuries. The London County and Westminster Bank was one of them.
London & Westminster Bank Ltd (1833-1909) opened in 1834 with a head office at 38 Throgmorton Street and a branch at 9 Waterloo Place. It acquired a succession of other banks, then in 1909 it amalgamated with London & County Banking Co to form London County & Westminster Bank Ltd. London County and Westminster Bank underwent a number of amalgamations and mergers, notably merging with the National Provincial Bank in 1968 eventually to form the National Westminster Bank in 1970.
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This is a little white building I always enjoy walking past. It is the westernmost end of a thin terrace of warehouses and showrooms, lodged in a triangle between the road and the railway. As I passed it the other day I saw that the tree which has taken root above the door was putting out leaves, and flourishing in its unlikely place.
On the bottom right is Hayne Street, which forms a bridge over the railway lines. There is a dark deep gap. The buildings on the right are the other side of the railway. The railway lines are the Hammersmith and City, Circle, and Metropolitan underground lines, which emerge briefly into the open air at this point . This is good to know, in case you are trying to send a text message from the tube train.
33 Charterhouse Square (left) and Hayne Street EC1. 10″ x 7″ in sketchbook 9. 19 April 2021
Recently this building has been used as some sort of office or headquarters of the Farringdon Crossrail development which is now completed. The construction workers have left, and this building looks vacated and rather sad, but noble in its sadness.
Here are some maps1 (click to enlarge):
Here are some photos of the location and work in progress.
No. 33 Charterhouse SquareWork in progress on the drawing.Here’s what’s written on the door.You can see the Barbican Towers from the bridge, Hayne StreetThe notice on the bridgeAnd street art on the bridge.
The drawing was done at about 17:30 at the end of a gloriously sunny day. The colours here are: Transparent Brown Oxide, Fire Gold Ochre, Phthalo Blue Turquoise, Buff Titanium, Mars Yellow. There is Transparent Pyrrol Orange for the road sign and the leaves of the tree are Green Gold. The paper is Arches Aquarelle 300gsm.
This building was completed in 1875-6. The architect was the aptly named Coutts Stone. This and other fascinating and detailed information is in the scholarly “Survey of London” 2008 edition.
Here is their entry on the row of houses on the South side of Charterhouse Square. I have drawn number 33, the westernmost section.
“Nos 33–43
The Metropolitan Railway acquired the whole of the south side of Charterhouse Square and emptied the properties in order to construct their extension from Farringdon to Moorgate in 1864–5. The cutting of the railway entailed the demolition of Nos 32–38 on the south side of the square, along with the whole of Thomas Neale’s Charterhouse Street. Nos 39–43 were briefly left standing, but the operation left the whole south side as an awkward set of narrow sites whose amenities were further diminished by the new east—west thoroughfare completed in front of them in 1873–4 (Ill. 338).
In 1875 the railway company sold the whole frontage to Tubbs, Lewis & Co., manufacturers of elastic fabric, silk throwsters, warehousemen and ‘smallware agents’, with premises in the City, Birmingham and Manchester, and a manufacturing base in Gloucestershire. The firm also had a line in the speculative building of warehouses at this period, on which they spent about a quarter of a million pounds. The row which they erected here was one of several local developments they carried out during the mid-1870s, including Charterhouse Buildings at the corner of Goswell and Clerkenwell Roads . The company chose as its architect Coutts Stone, a friend of George Devey. Early drawings suggest there was some thought of rebuilding from No. 38 eastwards with houses , but in the event the whole block became warehousing. Construction took place in 1876–7. Andrew Killby was the builder for Nos 33–42, with interior structural ironwork provided by H. Young & Co.; Scrivener & White took on the separate No. 43.
Nos 33–42 (Ill. 341) stand four storeys above a basement protected by heavy iron railings. The block is divided into three sections. The front elevation, faced in red brick, has a strong horizontal emphasis, with broad banks of mullioned windows relieved by some minor brick detailing. No. 43 has a narrower frontage and an extra storey topped by a pediment, while its main windows are of iron and flanked by decorated pilasters.
Tenants for these warehouses were mainly involved in the textile trades. At No. 41 one of the original occupants was Griswold & Hainworth Ltd, early specialists in portable knitting machines for domestic use. In the early 1890s the whole of No. 40 was occupied by David Marcus, importer and agent of Eastern manufactured goods: ‘The basement is reserved as a show-room for Oriental carpets and furniture; the ground floor is divided in front into a splendid show-room, and at the rear forms the wellappointed office; while the upper floors are fully utilised as show and stock-rooms’. In 1917 No. 42 became the first premises of J. Collett Ltd, ladies’ hat makers; they gradually took in Nos 41 and 43 and spread elsewhere in the square. The projecting clock which survives at No. 43 was put up by them in 1930. Though there were still four clothing firms here in the mid-1970s, there had been a shift towards printing, illustration and white-collar work. Since then most of the row has been fitted out as offices and studios, including No. 41 by Campbell Zogolovitch Wilkinson Gough (CZWG) in 1980 for the pop artist Allen Jones. “
1 Citation for text above and map: BHO Chicago MLA ‘Charterhouse Square area: Introduction; Charterhouse Square’, in Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell, ed. Philip Temple (London, 2008), pp. 242-265. British History Onlinehttp://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp242-265 [accessed 20 April 2021].
Update: here is a tweet from @nicholas_sack, (4th Sept 2021) with a wonderful photo of the same building, 20 years ago.
I enjoyed the way the pub is slotted into that corner space, amongst the taller buildings. The building behind it looks as though it might be older than the pub. The arched window-alcove to the left, above the car, has been partly obscured by the wall of the pub. The purpose of this alcove is unclear. It isn’t an ordinary window, and can’t let much light into the building as it is so recessed. It looks as though it might have had some industrial purpose.
And much is happening at roof level. On the right of the pub, high up, someone has made a roof garden. They have a glasshouse, and a weathervane in the shape of a whale. Behind that, even higher up, is a huge bridge-like construction, with arched supports, which looks as though it is a roof on top of a courtyard, behind the buildings I could see. Notice also the formidable collection of communications equipment: a satellite dish and three aerials near the whale, and on the building in the background there were at least two mobile phone masts, with antennae like loudspeakers, pointing in different directions.
The pub itself has a roof garden, with brightly coloured bunting and many flowerpots. I drew this picture yesterday, during Lockdown 2, so sadly it is closed. However it is going on my “After Lockdown” list.
Here are maps:
Maps showing the location of the drawing, and sightline.
Here are sketches of work in progress, and some snapshots of the location. I did a preliminary sketch on brown paper, as you see. It was cold, 6 degrees C. I didn’t manage to finish the colour outdoors, but scuttled home to complete the detail in the warm.
This picture took about 1 hour 45 minutes on location, including a chat with a friend who passed by on his afternoon stroll. Then another half hour at home working on the colour detail. The colours are: Phthalo Turquoise (W&N), Burnt Umber (DS), Mars Yellow (DS), Green Apatite Genuine (DS), Fired Red Ochre (DS), with some Perylene Maroon and Prussian Blue to get the greys, and a few dots of Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Hansa Yellow Mid, and Green Gold (all DS). The picture is size 7 inches by 10 inches on Arches Aquarelle 300gsm watercolour paper, in a Wyvern sketchbook (Sketchbook 9)
Preliminary sketch
Preliminary sketch
Pencil
Pencil
Pen
Watercolour
St James’ Church
Peabody Estate
Work in progress and snapshots from the location. Note the gloves.
This is one of an emerging series of drawings of pubs in the Clerkenwell area. Here are some others in the series:
I sketched The Sekforde, sitting on a step on the other side of the road. The pub was closed today. It looked like a good pub. While I was sketching I received confirmation of this. Two portly men strolled past, paused, and asked me if I was waiting for the pub to open. I said…
Here is a sketch of The Jerusalem Tavern, Britton St, Clerkenwell, made as the light faded. I find this a particularly lovely building. The curves over the windows are semicircles and there is a pleasing symmetry to the upper floors. The semicircle over St John’s Passage exactly matches the door to its left, on another…
Here is The Eagle. This is a very old pub, located at a significant junction on City Road. In the picture above, the alley on the right of the pub is called “Shepherdess Place”. It leads to a police car park, and several office blocks. I went down there to draw a picture of The…
Here is a sketch of The Jerusalem Tavern, Britton St, Clerkenwell, made as the light faded.
Jerusalem Tavern, 55 Britton St, 16 Nov 2020
I find this a particularly lovely building. The curves over the windows are semicircles and there is a pleasing symmetry to the upper floors. The semicircle over St John’s Passage exactly matches the door to its left, on another lovely house which has amazing tall windows on the first floor.
Britton Street was surprisingly lively on that Monday afternoon. There are offices along the street and people rushed in and out of doors, or came and stood on the pavement smoking. Delivery drivers were the main traffic, both vans and bicycles. They all seemed to know each other. A package was delivered to the office next to me. A woman came out to receive it. It was evidently expected. The driver returned to his van, and sorted more packages inside.
Here are some work in progress pictures and a map. I have just finished reading “Troubled Blood” by Robert Galbraith. If you’ve read the book you’ll know that much of the action takes place in these streets in Clerkenwell. As far as I can work out, all the streets mentioned in the book exist, and the routes described are realistic.
This drawing took about an hour. The colours are: for the walls – Fired Gold Ochre (DS), Mars Yellow (DS) and Phthalo Turquoise (W&N) , for the light in the windows Hansa Yellow Mid (DS). The drawing is 7″ x 10″, done in a sketchbook on 300gsm Arches Aquarelle Paper.
While I was drawing, I detected a movement in my peripheral vision. A spider of alarming size was climbing the wall against which I was leaning. It was making little spurts across each brick, then secreting itself into the mortar, trying to become invisible, before making its next jump. As I watched, it turned around meaningfully, and started heading down towards my rucksack, which was upright on the pavement, open, leaning against the brickwork like a spider-catching bucket. I moved the rucksack, and closed its flap. I was more-than-usually disconcerted, because we had been watching “Dr No” the previous night. I could recall rather too vividly that scene of the poisonous spider which crawls on James Bond while he is sleeping. I stood away from the wall, and monitored the spider’s progress. I did not have long to wait. It reached pavement level, no doubt disappointed that the bright yellow rucksack had somehow disappeared. Then it went into a pavement-level crack to decide what to do next. I decided to stop worrying about it.
To see the spider, scroll down – if you dare. Trigger warning: SPIDER.
Spider. It is about half the height of a house brick. Those are bricks on the wall, against which I was leaning.
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Jane Sketching 