I walked to The Turks Head Wapping: a restaurant among trees. After a splendid lunch, I sketched the building.
The Turks Head Wapping E1, 10″ x 7″ in Sketchbook 12, 26th August 2022, 16:30pm
The drawing took me about 50mins on location, pen and ink. I added the colour when I got back to my desk.
Before and after the colour went on.
Marvellous chimneys!
The chimneys are Transparent Pyrrol Orange. Other colours are: Green Serpentine Genuine, Mars Yellow, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Yellow Deep, and Perylene Maroon to get the darker tiled walls. The blacks and greys are Ultramarine Blue mixed with Burnt Umber. These are all Daniel Smith watercolours. The paper is Arches Aquarelle 300gsm NOT, in a sketchbook made by the Wyvern Bindery in Hoxton.
Here is work in progress:
This is a wonderful café-restaurant – recommended. It is east of Tower Bridge, about a 45 minute walk from the City.
map (c) open street map contributorsDip pen and W&N drawing ink.
Here is the marvellous Turks Head Café, Wapping, rescued from demolition by local residents in the 1980s. Inside, I found warmth, quiet tables, and the gentle murmur of conversations: people actually talking to each other.…
On Monday I cycled out East to the Turk’s Head for breakfast. With a coffee and croissant, in front of me, I sketched the view. The Turk’s Head is the building on the right. The…
I joined a sketching friend for a stroll around Spitalfields. We had coffee at the Cafe in the Crypt of Christchurch Spitalfields, and then sat at the tables outside and sketched the view.
Here is my sketch:
Spitalfields Market E1 from ChristChurch, 7″ square in Sketchbook 12. 1st June 2022
Behind the red-bricked buildings of the Market, you can see the office and residential tower blocks along Bishopsgate. “Principal Tower” in the one to the right.
Here are some on-location photos and a picture of the sketchbook.
Thankyou to the talented artist LA for your company and inspiration on this expedition. It’s fun to sketch together!
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“The Palm Tree” 127 Grove Road, Mile End, London E3, 28th September 2021, 10″ x 7″ in Sketchbook 10
I have often puzzled about this pub. I pass it as I’m cycling or running on the Regent’s Canal towpath. It stands alone, in a field of green, strangely isolated. Has it always been like that?
The Palm Tree stands isolated by the Regents Canal.
The answer to that question is no. It was not always isolated. It used to be surrounded by houses.
Its Historic England entry (1427142) tells me that when this pub was built, in 1935, it was surrounded by terraces of houses, Palm Street, Lessada Street and Totty Street, which have since vanished. The entry says: “the pub is the final remnant of a once built-up, industrial part of London, destroyed in the Blitz and in subsequent clearances”
Usually, an elderly resident will gesture to dense terraced housing and inform you that “this used to be all fields”. But in this area of Mile End, the reverse is true: this open green area used to be all houses!
Here are a selection of maps. You see the dense housing and close-packed streets in the late 19th century, damaged by bombs in 1944, and then replaced by pre-fabricated housing in the 1970s. The post-war prefabricated housing was demolished in 1977. In the 1979-85 OS Map, the streets are still there, but the housing has gone. By 1995 it was “all fields”, and the Palm Tree pub stands alone, as it does today.
1891 – terraced housing
1895 – terraced housing – note also the tramlines on Grove Road!
1948 – terraces have gone
1972-5 – now pre-fab housing
1979-85 – houses have gone
1995 – streets have become park
The de-industrialisation of an area. One of the industries in the area was furniture making. The maps show furniture factories and warehouses. The Historic England listing suggests that “Palmers Wharf” on the other side of the canal is named for the palm tree importers, hence the name of the pub and its adjacent street [references for the source of the maps are on the images: click to enlarge]
The reason the pub has an entry in the Historic England listings is that it is Grade II listed. Amongst the many architectural delights described in the listing is the saloon bar:
“The saloon bar, accessed from the furthest door along the north-east elevation, appears to remain almost entirely unchanged since construction. The higher class of the bar is apparent in the fielded dado panelling on the walls and on the curved bar counter; otherwise the internal decoration is similar to the other bars, retaining its bar back, chequered counter edge tiling and chimneypiece[……]A dartboard cabinet, possibly from the original pub, was reinstalled in the late C20. Unlike the public bar, which originally had only gentlemen’s toilets, the saloon was served by male and female toilets (set either side of the fireplace); both of these remain largely unaltered, with original doors and door furniture, tilework and, in the gents’, a Royal Doulton urinal.” [Historic England Listing number 1427142]
Reason enough to visit the pub when it is open!
Part way through this sketch it started raining, then the rain became heavy. I finished the sketch at my desk.
Starting the sketch in the sun
Washed out picture, still damp, when I reached home.
The main colours are: Mars Yellow for the brickwork and plants, Fired Gold Ochre for the reddish brickwork, Perylene Maroon and Prussian Blue, plus some Mars Yellow, to make the greys, and Green Apatite Genuine for the darker greens of the trees, with highlights of Green Gold. There’s a bit of Buff Titanium for the whitish tiled part on the ground floor. All colours are Daniel Smith watercolours.
Thanks to the staff and curators at London Picture Archive, I can add this marvellous photograph of The Palm Tree in 1971:
Note the street sign: “Lessada Street” on the right which has vanished, and the brick block at the back on the left which has completely gone, as has the wonderful lamp-post.
Apart from that, it’s not very different. All around it has changed.
“The Palm Tree” from the North, 2nd Oct 2021
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On a radiantly bright day I walked East from the City in search of horizons. Wapping, east of Tower Bridge, is where the buildings at last are of human size, and you can see the sky. Next to the pub called “Town of Ramsgate” on Wapping High Street, there is a small passage, a slot…
The passage is to the right, in front of the pub
Wapping Old Stairs is quite hard to find. It is next to the “Town of Ramsgate” pub.
This sketch took about 45 minutes. The colours are Fired Gold Ochre (DS), Phthalo Turquoise (W&N), Perylene Maroon (DS), Mars Yellow (DS). I used the Fired Gold Ochre because it granulates so usefully to make the sand. The algae and green plants on the steps were slightly iridescent, glowing rather strangely even though in shadow.
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Here is the view across the river Thames from Trinity Buoy Wharf, E14. The drawing shows “The O2”, which used to be called “The Millenium Dome”. It is an events arena. I have never been inside. In the distance are the towers of Canary Wharf.
I drew this in a lovely peaceful spot sitting on a wooden step next to a shed at Trinity Buoy Wharf. Each person who walked past said hello. A man paused and commented, “Ah, Art is going on!”, which made me laugh, somehow. Perhaps it was the way he said it.
Here is work in progress, and a photo of my art materials and my bike helmet on the step.
The drawing took 1hour30mins. The colours are: Mars Yellow (Daniel Smith), Transparent Pyrrol Orange (Daniel Smith), Phthalo Turquoise (Winsor and Newton).
I have sketched at Trinity Buoy wharf before. See this blog post:
The headlines in the Evening Standard had described the pollution levels in central London at “Red Alert” levels. So I headed East to the clearer air and big skies of the maritime Thames. Trinity Buoy Wharf is here: I drew a picture of the lighthouse. Above me, four stories of shipping containers contain offices. Words…
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I went on a marvellous cycle ride in East London. The air was clear, the roads were wide and empty. As I came back I spotted this view of the Balfron Tower. I sat on a low wall in a housing estate off Willis Street, and sketched it.
Balfron Tower, Poplar, east London.
This tower is designed by the architect Ernő Goldfinger, and resembles his other famous tower, Trellick Tower, which is in North West London. Balfron Tower was built in 1967 as council housing.
It has recently been sold by Tower Hamlets Council, and redeveloped by the developer LondonNewcastle as luxury flats. You can see some of the scaffolding in the drawing.
Here is where it is.
The arrow is my sightline for the drawing.
Here is work in progress. Also a glimpse of my bicycle.
As I sat sketching, a pale young man approached. “It’s beautiful,” he said as he strode past. He was referring to the Balfron Tower, not to my drawing.
“Yes, ” I agreed, “I think so”. I looked down to my drawing again. But the young man had something else to say.
“You should see Jesus,” he told me, “He’s beautiful too.” Taking my baffled silence as amazement, he continued, “I’ve seen Him, believe it or not”. He left this statement hanging in the air and walked on around the corner, without breaking step.
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Walking east, downriver, the crowds left behind, suddenly there is space and silence.
Hermitage Moorings, with the boat “Twee Artsen”
This drawing is a view across the river from the North bank. Tower Bridge is just off to the right. Opposite you see The Shard, and the waterfront buildings of Hays Galleria. The curved building in the background houses the Greater London Authority (GLA).
In the foreground is the boat which is called “Twee Artsen”. As far as I can work out, that is Dutch for “Two Doctors”, as in medical practitioners. It seems a strange name for a boat, so perhaps I got that wrong. Can anyone advise me?
This was a lovely place to draw.
The drawing took about half an hour. The sky is cobalt blue, knocked back a bit with Naples Yellow Red. There’s some Mars Yellow and Perinone Orange for the masts of the boats. The Thames is Cobalt blue with Burnt Umber. The boat black is made from Phthalo Green (BS) and Perylene Maroon. There’s some Hansa Yellow Mid in there too, for the lower sky. Quite a lot of colours in this one. The Naples Yellow Red is a Rembrandt colour, all the rest are Daniel Smith.
Where Hermitage Moorings is.
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I went down to the river to find the sun. It was there, flooding the North side of the Thames, and so were an extraordinary number of tourists.
But who can blame them? The city was looking clear cut and perfect, there was a slight haze in the distance, a blue sky, and a low golden sun. I stopped by The Tower, and admired Tower Bridge, as everyone else was doing. Then I looked the other way, and saw the towers of the City.
From left to right: 22Bishopsgate (the tallest), the Cheesegrater, the Scalpel, the Gherkin.
I enjoyed the fact that you can see the pollarded trees and the chimneys of the buildings of the Tower of London, in front of the skyscrapers. The lower, pointed building, just to the left of the Gherkin, is the former headquarters of the Admiralty. Samuel Pepys (1633 – 1703), who wrote the diaries, worked there. This building is now an upmarket hotel.
The castellations in the foreground are part of the Tower of London.
The colours used are Cobalt Blue, Burnt Umber, and Mars Yellow, all Daniel Smith watercolours.
This drawing took about an hour, drawn and coloured on location.
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On Wednesday I went for a peregrination around Hackney, north and east of Brick Lane.
I drew this sitting on a bench on Weavers’ Fields. The tower block is Charles Dickens House. The church which you can just see is on the junction of Pollard Row and the Bethnal Green Road. It is a deconsecrated church, and looks as though it’s been converted to residential flats. The building with the roof, straight ahead, is on Derbyshire Road E2. It’s clearly been industrial in its time, now it looks vaguely high-tech. Note the long solar panel on the roof.
It was incredibly cold, about 5 degrees C. But very bright sun, so the solar panel must have been working.
I walked on back to the city. In amongst the office blocks it was warmer. I tucked myself into the angle of a building and drew this:
This is 101 Worship Street, in the beautiful row of workshops designed by Philip Webb. If I were to make the untold millions necessary, I would buy up this row and look after it. I have had my eye on it for a while, ready to campaign if it were threatened. At the far end, sketchily shown behind the cars, is a sort of font or water fountain, with a sharp angled roof. The houses are not in good repair, and evidently listed or they’d have been pulled down by now. They are surrounded by the huge developments of Hoxton and the City of London, as you see behind. This is the “fin tech” area. But these houses survive, against the odds, tribute to the utopian dreams of a previous era.
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This huge redbrick building in Leman Street stands proudly amongst the 21st century steel and glass. Inscribed round its windows and above its door in letters a foot high are the words “Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited”. The words are spelled out in full, and written in stone. Oh, those confident and visionary Victorians!
The Co-operative Wholesale Society’s London Branch headquarters were built to designs by J. F. Goodey of 1885. At the formal opening on 2 November 1887, the CWS announced that it should ‘be their aim to make this beautiful building a common home for all the various movements having for their object the interest and advancement of the working people. They had with them their friend, the Rev. S. A. Barnett, and they hoped to work hand in hand with him and the residents of Toynbee Hall, in giving a message of hope to the people of the neighbourhood’
Jane Sketching 