Casting A Bell At Here East
This week, some of us who have been campaigning for the past three years to Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry met together to cast a bell as a symbol of our collective belief that the foundry has a viable future as a proper working foundry.
The event was a collaboration between Factum Foundation, who want to be the operators of the renewed Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and the Bartlett School of Architecture who opened their new workshops at UCL Here East in the Queen Elizabeth Park this year. Photographer Rachel Ferriman was there to capture the drama of the bell casting which took place under the expert supervision of Technical Director Peter Scully.
There was a celebratory atmosphere, after last week’s announcement of a Holding Order by the Secretary of State halting Tower Hamlets Council from granting permission for change of use to the developers who want to reopen the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a bell-themed boutique hotel. Yet a breathless hush fell upon the assembly as the crucible was opened and tilted, allowing molten bronze at 1200 degrees to flow in a narrow golden stream, as bright as the sun, into the ceramic mould to cast a 6 kg bell. There was silence as we witnessed the sacred alchemy of bell casting, a ritual that has been enacted in the East End for at least seven centuries. It is a magic that we will not give up because it is at the core of what defines this place and binds our community.
The Secretary of State’s Holding Order gives him time to consider whether to call in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry planning application and determine it himself by holding a Public Inquiry. While he is deciding what to do, we need as many people as possible to write and ask him to call it in.
If you have not yet done so, please write to the Secretary of State because the more letters we send the better our chance of saving the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
Use your own words and give your personal opinions but be sure to include these key points below. Read the guidance and write today, then forward this to your friends and family, encouraging them to do the same.
HOW TO WRITE EFFECTIVELY TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
- Ask the Secretary of State to call in the planning application for the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and hold a Public Inquiry.
- Point out that the hotel planning application causes ‘substantial harm’ to a very important heritage asset.
- Emphasise the significance of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and the very controversial nature of this proposal, locally, nationally and internationally.
Anyone can write, wherever you are in the world, but be sure to include your postal address and send your letter by email to
PCU@communities.gsi.gov.uk
or by post to
National Planning Casework Unit
5 St Philips Place
Colmore Row
Birmingham BP3 2PW
Peter Scully adds an ingot of the raw material
Peter measures the temperature of the molten bronze
The ceramic bell mould is heated to 500 degrees to ensure no moisture remains
Once the mould is ready, the team must work fast
With the mould in place, Melis van den Berg begins to tip the crucible
As Melis begins to pour the metal from the crucible, Peter is ready to push any hardened metal aside from the flow
The molten bronze flows from the crucible into the mould
Melis and Peter chip away at the ceramic mould, revealing the form of the bell
A moment of reflection at the completion of the casting
The bronze bell, prior to finishing
Photographs copyright © Rachel Ferriman
You may also like to read about
The Secretary of State Steps In
The Fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Nigel Taylor, Tower Bell Manager
Four Hundred Years at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Pearl Binder at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Dorothy Rendell at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Hope for The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry
Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
So Long, Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Fourteen Short Poems About The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
A Couple Of Pints With Tony Hall
Libby Hall remembers the first time she visited a pub with Tony Hall in the nineteen sixties – because it signalled the beginning of their relationship which lasted until his death in 2008. “We’d been working together at a printer in Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, but our romance began in the pub on the night I was leaving,” Libby confided to me, “It was my going-away drinks and I put my arms around Tony in the pub.”
During the late sixties, Tony Hall worked as a newspaper artist in Fleet St for The Evening News and then for The Sun, using his spare time to draw weekly cartoons for The Labour Herald. Yet although he did not see himself as a photographer, Tony took over a thousand photographs that survive as a distinctive testament to his personal vision of life in the East End.
Shift work on Fleet St gave Tony free time in the afternoon that he spent in the pub which was when these photographs were taken. “Tony loved East End pubs,” Libby recalled fondly, “He loved the atmosphere. He loved the relationships with the regular customers. If a regular didn’t turn up one night, someone would go round to see if they were alright.”
Tony Hall’s pub pictures record a lost world of the public house as the centre of the community in the nineteen sixties. “On Christmas 1967, I was working as a photographer at the Morning Star and on Christmas Eve I bought an oven-ready turkey at Smithfield Market,” Libby remembered, “After work, Tony and I went into the Metropolitan Tavern, and my turkey was stolen – but before I knew it there had been a whip round and a bigger and better one arrived!”
The former “Laurel Tree” on Brick Lane
Photographs copyright © Libby Hall
Images Courtesy of the Tony Hall Archive at the Bishopsgate Institute
Libby Hall & I would be delighted if any readers can assist in identifying the locations and subjects of Tony Hall’s photographs.
You may also like to read
Join The Bottletop Royalty
Robson Cezar, the King of the Bottletops has been making these ingenious bottletop crowns for the forthcoming festive season. Ideal for all celebrations, especially parties, dinners and carol singing.
They are suitable for men and woman who aspire to become bottletop kings and queens, and for younger folk who wish to be bottletop princes and princesses.
A satin ribbon tied at the back of the head means one size fits all.
CLICK HERE to order your bottletop crown and face the festive season with confidence!
Robson Cezar, The King of the Bottletops
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
A pair of bottletop princesses model Robson Cezar’s crowns
You may also like to read about
Robson Cezar, King of the Bottletops
King of the Bottletops at St Katharine’s Precinct
Maria Pellicci’s Christmas Ravioli
Elide Pellicci looks down upon Maria & Nevio Pellicci
If you should spot a light, gleaming after hours in the back kitchen at E. Pellicci in the Bethnal Green Rd at this time of year, it will be Maria Pellicci making the Christmas ravioli for her family as she has done each year since 1962.
Maria originates from the same tiny village of Casciana near Lucca in Tuscany as her late husband Nevio Pellicci (senior). And, to her surprise, when Maria first arrived in London she discovered his mother Elide Pellicci, who came over in 1899, was already making ravioli to the same recipe that she knew from home in Italy.
Elide is the E. Pellicci celebrated in chrome letters upon the primrose yellow art deco facade of London’s best-loved family-run cafe, the woman who took over the running of the cafe in the thirties after the death of her husband Priamo who worked there from 1900 – which means we may be assured that the Christmas ravioli have been made here by the Pelliccis in this same spot for over a century.
Thus it was a great honour that Photographer Patricia Niven & I were the very first outsiders to be invited to witness and record this time-hallowed ritual in Bethnal Green. But I regret to inform you that this particular ravioli is only ever made for the family, which means the only way you can get to taste it is if you marry into the Pelliccis.
“It’s a Tuscan Christmas tradition – Ravioli in Brodo – we only do it once a year and every family has their own recipe,” Maria admitted to me as she turned the handle of the machine and her son Nevio Pellici (junior) reached out to manage the rapidly emerging yellow ribbon of pasta. “My mother and my grandmother used to make it, and I’ve been doing it all my life.”
In recent years, Maria has been quietly tutoring Nevio in this distinctive culinary art that is integral to the Pellicci family. “I was going with the boys to see Naples play against Arsenal tonight, but that’s down the drain,” he declared with good grace – revealing he had only discovered earlier in the day that his mother had decided the time was right for making the special ravioli, ready for the whole family to eat in chicken broth on Christmas Day.
“He’s a good boy,” Maria declared with a tender smile, acknowledging his sacrifice, “years ago I used to stay here on my own making the ravioli until eleven o’clock at night.”
“She’s trying to hand it over to me,” Nevio confirmed proudly.
“Nevio’s good and he’s got the patience,” Maria added encouragingly, as Nevio lowered the pasta carefully onto the ravioli mould.
“I’ve got the rubbish job, I have to fill the ravioli,” he complained in mock self-pity, grinning with pleasure as the two of them set to work with nimble fingers to fill the ravioli. Although the precise ingredients are a fiercely guarded secret, Maria confided to me that the filling comprises beef and pork with Parmigiano and Percorino, along with other undisclosed seasonings. “Everyone does it differently,” she confessed modestly, making light of the lifetime of refining that lies behind her personal recipe.
Already Maria had cooked the mixture slowly for a hour and added a couple of eggs to bind it, and – now it had cooled – she and Nevio were transferring it into the ravioli mould. “We used to do this by hand,” she informed me, turning contemplative as she watched Nevio expertly produce another ribbon of yellow pasta to sit on top of the mould. “We rolled the pasta out on the table before we had the machine. Sometimes, large families used to fill the whole table rolling out enough pasta to feed everyone on Christmas Day. When my mother was small, they were poor and lived in a hut but they had their own flour and eggs, so they could always make pasta.”
It was Nevio’s task to turn the mould over and press it down hard onto the table, binding the layers of pasta together. Then, with intense concentration as Maria waited expectantly, he peeled the ravioli away from the mould, revealing a sheet that looked like a page of neatly upholstered postage stamps. Making swift work of it, Maria wielded her little metal wheel by its wooden handle, separating the individual ravioli and transferring them to a metal tray.
In the kitchen of the empty restaurant, mother and son surveyed their fine handiwork with satisfaction. Each mould produced forty ravioli and, in the course of the evening, they made eight batches of ravioli, thus producing three hundred and sixty ravioli to delight the gathered Pelliccis on Christmas Day – and thereby continuing a family tradition that extends over a century. Yet for Maria, Ravioli in Brodo is more than a memento of her origin in Tuscany, making it here in the East End over all this time incarnates this place as her home.
“I am happy here and I know everyone in Bethnal Green,” she admitted to me, “It’s my village and it’s my family.”
Maria & Nevio rolling out the pasta
Maria sprinkles semolina in the mould to stop the pasta sticking
Maria & Nevio placing the meat filling in the ravioli
Nevio presses down on the ravioli mould
The ravioli are turned out from the mould
Maria cuts out the individual ravioli
Over three hundred ravioli ready for Christmas Day
Elide & Priamo, the Pellicci ancestors look down in approval upon the observance of making Christmas ravioli for more than a century in Bethnal Green
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
E.Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 0AG
You may like to read my other Pellicci stories
Maria Pellicci, The Meatball Queen of Bethnal Green
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
Nicholas Borden’s Latest Paintings
Ever since I met Nicholas Borden painting at his easel in the midst of a blizzard in Bethnal Green in 2013, it has been my delight to follow his work and publish his new pictures here in the pages of Spitalfields Life. Over recent months, Nicholas has been extraordinarily productive out on the streets of London, creating all these new paintings that you see below.
Liverpool St Station
Petticoat Lane
City Rd
Waterloo Station
Thames Embankment
Jogger in the rain, E9
St John of Jerusalem Hackney, E9
St Leonard’s Shoreditch, E2
St Peter’s Bethnal Green, E2
Well St, E9
Terrace Rd, E9
Columbia Rd Market, E2
My back garden with washing drying, E9
Looking north towards Hackney Central, E8
Looking west towards Bethnal Green from the ninteenth floor, E3
Paintings copyright © Nicholas Borden
If you wish to enquire about any of these paintings, please contact Nicholas direct nicholasborden100@yahoo.co.uk
You may also like to take a look at
Catching Up With Nicholas Borden
Nicholas Borden’s East End View
Nicholas Borden’s Winter Paintings
Nicholas Borden’s Spring Paintings
On The Eve Of The Bloomsbury Jamboree
The King of the Bottletops has been making festive crowns (Photo by Sarah Ainslie)
Louise Lateur at E5 Bakehouse has been baking gingerbread figures (Photo by Patricia Niven)
Tim Mainstone of Mainstone Press, Joe Pearson of Design for Today, & I have been scurrying around London making last minute preparations for our BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE, a festival of books and print, talks and merriment tomorrow SUNDAY 8th DECEMBER from 11am until 5pm at the ART WORKERS GUILD, 6 Queens Sq, WC1.
This is your last chance to book the few remaining tickets for Adam Dant’s lecture on MAPPING AN IMAGINARY LONDON & Eleanor Crow’s lecture on SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON.
We advise readers to come early to avoid the rush…
Click here for a talk on MAPPING AN IMAGINARY LONDON by Adam Dant at 3pm
Click here for a talk on SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON by Eleanor Crow at 2pm
Eleanor Crow’s Map Of East End Trades
Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday and Eleanor Crow has illustrated this map for the East End Trades Guild which will be distributed free in shops – so don’t forget to pick up your copy.
In these testing times, we must cherish and support the independent shops and small businesses which contribute so much to the East End by creating employment for local people and building communities.
Eleanor Crow will be talking about her book SHOPFRONTS OF LONDON at 2pm this Sunday at our BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE at the Art Workers Guild. Click here for tickets
Click on the map to enlarge it
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY FOR £14.99
At a time of momentous change in the high street, Eleanor’s witty and fascinating personal survey champions the enduring culture of Britain’s small neighbourhood shops.
As our high streets decline into generic monotony, we cherish the independent shops and family businesses that enrich our city with their characterful frontages and distinctive typography.
Eleanor’s collection includes more than hundred of her watercolours of the capital’s bakers, cafés, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, chemists, launderettes, hardware stores, eel & pie shops, bookshops and stationers. Her pictures are accompanied by the stories of the shops, their history and their shopkeepers – stretching from Chelsea in the west to Bethnal Green and Walthamstow in the east.
