In William Blake’s Lambeth
Glad Day in Lambeth
If you wish to visit William Blake’s Lambeth, just turn left outside Waterloo Station, walk through the market in Lower Marsh, cross Westminster Bridge Rd and follow Carlisle Lane under the railway arches. Here beneath the main line into London was once the house and garden, where William & Catherine Blake were pleased to sit naked in their apple tree.
Yet in recent years, William Blake has returned to Lambeth. Within the railway arches leading off Carlisle Lane, a large gallery of mosaics based upon his designs has been installed, evoking his fiery visions in the place where he conjured them. Ten years work by hundreds of local people have resulted in dozens of finely-wrought mosaics bringing Blake’s images into the public realm, among the warehouses and factories where they may be discovered by the passerby, just as he might have wished. Trains rumble overhead with a thunderous clamour that shakes the ancient brickwork and cars roar through these dripping arches, creating a dramatic and atmospheric environment in which to contemplate his extraordinary imagination.
On the south side of the arches is Hercules Rd, site of the William Blake Estate today, where he lived between 1790 and 1800 at 13 Hercules Buildings, a three-storey terrace house demolished in 1917. Blake passed ten productive and formative years on the south bank, that he recalled as ‘Lambeth’s vale where Jerusalem’s foundations began.’ By contrast with Westminster where he grew up, Lambeth was almost rural two hundred years ago and he enjoyed a garden with a fig tree that overlooked the grounds of the bishop’s palace. This natural element persists in the attractively secluded Archbishop’s Park on the north side of the arches in the former palace grounds.
To enter these sonorous old arches that span the urban and pastoral is to discover the resonant echo chamber of one of the greatest English poetic imaginations. When I visited I found myself alone at the heart of Lambeth yet in the presence of William Blake, and it is an experience I recommend to my readers.
‘There is a grain of sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find”
These mosaics were created by South Bank Mosaics which is now The London School of Mosaic
You may also like to take a look
Wow, in my mind the Open Air William Blake’s Lambeth Gallery is a wondrous discovery to wonder through freely taking in the wonders of it all – truly a gem to be added to anyone’s ‘To Do’ list when next visiting London.
So thankful to have stumbled upon Spitalfields Life and be brought such joy first thing the morning.
In theory, these very fluid and expressive images should have become somewhat static and
(forgive me) choppy, when interpreted in mosaics. However!? — these artisans have excelled at
capturing Blake’s passionate visuals and letter forms. Masterful. As someone who makes one-of-a-kind books, I have thought about how the concept of “book” can be expansive and free-wheeling. Surely, a pedestrian can walk along, reviewing this whole array of mosaics and have a sense of
viewing the world’s most unique book by Blake. Some images will require a lengthy pause, and perhaps some will get a more brief review — like in a book held in one’s lap — but the glory of Blake is given a fantastic stage. And methinks that the grungy backdrops of urban tile and scaly walls only ADDS to the fascination. (I thought the treatment of the letterforms were especially interesting. Both the silky flowing letters, and the stalwart block versions. All great!)
Many thanks, GA — And Southbank Mosaics and volunteers! Spectacular.
The Songs of Experience picture seems to owe a lot to Giotto. We stumbled on these mosaics after the Imperial War Museum—an unfortunate name. Like Blake, we have a fig tree on our property in New York City. I hope he made jam.