Not only containing Thomas Hardy’s tree, this former graveyard is dense with history. Sir John Soane’s family mausoleum is here, the roof of which inspired the design of our famous telephone boxes. Original drawing of the tomb.Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the first woman peer, unveiled this grand memorial and sundial in 1879 to commemorate some of the illustrious people […]
More history in St Pancras Gardens
St Pancras Gardens – Thomas Hardy’s tree and The Beatles
At St Pancras Gardens near King’s Cross you can find this ash tree which has grown over the years into the surrounding gravestones. They are a record of the work Thomas Hardy, a surveyor and architect’s assistant, supervised when appointed to exhume human remains and dismantle the tombs to make way for the new Midland railway line in 1865. […]
Sculptural jewellery by Ute Decker
I first saw Ute Decker’s jewellery several years ago and featured it in a previous post back in 2010. She’s based at Cockpit Studios, one of the diminishing number of London havens for artists and makers. The sculpture was what first appealed to me; I only found out later about her commitment to the use of conflict-free and […]
Shelley James at Cockpit Studios
A maker I hadn’t met before showing at Cockpit was Shelley James and there was no way I couldn’t stop after seeing these glass pieces. The one below contains a poem, the strips of text legible according to the angle of the ball. You can see for yourself the connections to DNA, science, mathematics and music, all […]
Prudence Millinery at Cockpit Studios
Open weekends at Cockpit Studios are a good chance to catch up on makers working there as well as meeting new ones. Prudence Millinery produces outsized hats (recognise them from Vivienne Westwood in the 1990’s?) and has been based at Cockpit in Holborn for several years but I’d never stopped for a chat and try on before. She […]
Carla Groppi’s work in pastel and charcoal
This huge (152 x 122cm) orange pastel drawing by Carla Groppi displayed by Alicia David Gallery stopped me in my tracks at The Affordable Art Fair. She is obsessed by the Belle Epoque photography of Eugène Atget, repeating the same imagery in subtly different ways as you can see below.Apart from her obvious technical skill, I’m fascinated […]