The Bakers Of Widegate Street
Next time you pass through Widegate St, walking from Bishopsgate towards Artillery Passage on your way to Spitalfields, lift up your eyes to see the four splendid sculptures of bakers by Philip Lindsey Clark (1889 – 1977) upon the former premises of Nordheim Model Bakery at numbers twelve and thirteen. Pause to take in the subtle proportions of this appealing yet modest building of 1926 by George Val Myers in which the sculpture is integrated so successfully, just as at Broadcasting House which Val Myers designed five years later, placing Eric’s Gill’s figures upon the front.
In fact, Philip Lindsey Clark was a friend of Eric Gill – his work shares the same concern with illuminating the transcendental in existence, and from 1930 onwards his sculpture was exclusively of religious subjects. Born in Brixton, son of Scots architectural sculptor Robert Lindsey Clark, he trained in his father’s studio in Cheltenham and then returned to London to study at the City & Guilds School in Kennington. Enlisted in 1914, he was severely wounded in action and received a Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry. Then, after completing his training at the Royal Academy Schools, he designed a number of war memorials including those in Southwark and in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.
The form of these ceramic reliefs of bakers – with their white glaze and sparing use of blue as a background – recalls religious sculpture, especially stations of the cross, and there is something deeply engaging about such handsome, austerely-modelled figures with their self-absorbed presence, preoccupied by their work. The dignity of labour and the poetic narrative of transformation in the baking of bread is made tangible by these finely judged sculptures. My own favourite is the figure of the baker with his tray of loaves upon his shoulder in triumph, a satisfaction which anyone who makes anything will recognise, borne of the work, skill and application that is entailed in creation.
These reliefs were fired by Carters of Poole, the company that became Poole Pottery, notable for their luminous white glazes, elegant sculptural forms and spare decoration using clear natural colours. They created many of the tiles for the London Underground and their relief tiles from the 1930s can still be seen on Bethnal Green Station.
Philip Lindsey Clark’s sculptures are those of a man who grew up in the artists’ studio, yet witnessed the carnage of First World War at first hand, carrying on fighting for two days even with a piece of shrapnel buried in his head, and then turned his talents to memorialise those of his generation that were gone. After that, it is no wonder that he saw the sublime in the commonplace activity of bakers. Eventually Lindsey Clark entered a Carmelite order, leaving London and retiring to the West Country where he lived until the age of eighty-eight.
So take a moment next time you pass through Widegate St – named after the wide gate leading to the ‘spital fields that once were there – and contemplate the sculptures by Philip Lindsey Clark, embodying his vision of the holiness of bakers.
George Val Myer’s former Nordheim Model Bakery with sculptures by Philip Lindsey Clark
You may also like to read about
A Night in the Bakery at St John
Dorothy Annan’s Murals in Farringdon St
A monument to one of the most important jobs ever. It’s true: in passing, one rarely notices such works of art… Very nicely researched!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
This was our shop. From c 1917 to 1935 Ish.
My grandfather George ort ran it.
My father and his two brothers were born here.
And went to sir John cass school.
They were the only non Jews. The boys learned quite a bit of Yiddish ?
My grandmother died aged only 35 here.
We also had another shop in the Lane.
And ran one for Norheim.
My family have been London bakers for over 400 years
My grandmas family wenzel. still have shops around London.
Pennie Ort
I first noticed these statues about 15 years ago and was truly amazed by them. Thanks for reviving the memory GA. They were especially meaningful as my father-in-law was a baker.
Absolutely nourishing! I want one of those loaves of bread!
And lovely placement on the building.
I hope, GA, you have an opportunity to interview “Pennie Ort”–perhaps your readers will see another piece about the bakery?
Now, a year after your illness, I hope you are in good health, and happy.
I haven’t been aware of these until now so thanks for the heads up (literally!) I look forward to seeing them next time I’m in the area.
The book of the week on Radio 4 last week was all about the history and importance of bread and so this is a very timely post – thank you!
And this is why I love this website. It invariably provides the answers to lots of questions I have about all things Spitalfields and the surrounding area.
I’ve often stopped to admire these bakers and wondered about their history and now I know, so thank you very, very much!
Such a marvelous artistic tribute to this trade, reminding us of the nobility and honour of labour. Especially important to remember in our current times, when job precarity has become standard economic policy at national and global levels. And of course exacerbated by the pandemic.
A noble building and noble artwork indeed! And completely unknown to me, as was the artists (not that that is any particular wonder). Such lovely cottage loaves! I shall definitely have to make a pilgrimage to see these “live” on my next trip to London….May it be soon! It was supposed to have been last autumn…but we all know THAT didn’t come off… Thank you for another in a seemingly endless string of lovely bits and pieces that one is better off for having read and seen.