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
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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.
Winter Light In Spitalfields
The inexorable descent into the winter darkness is upon us, even if just a couple of weeks from now we shall reach the equinox and days will start to lengthen. At this season, I am more aware of light than at any other – especially when the city languishes under an unremitting blanket of low cloud, filtering the daylight into a grey haze that casts no shadow.
Yet on some recent mornings I have woken to sunlight and it always lifts my spirits to walk out through the streets under a clear sky. On such days, the low-angled sunshine and its attendant deep shadow conjures an exhilarating drama.
In these particular conditions of light, walking from Brick Lane down Fournier St is like advancing through a cave towards the light, refracting around the vast sombre block of Christ Church that guards the entrance. The street runs from east to west and, as the sun declines, its rays enter through the churchyard gates next to Rectory illuminating the houses opposite and simultaneously passing between the pillars at the front of the church to deliver light at the western end where it meets Commercial St.
For a spell, the shadows of the stone balls upon the pillars at the churchyard gate fall upon the houses on the other side of the street and then the rectangle of light, admitted between the church and the Rectory, narrows from the width of a house to single line before it fades out. At the junction with Commercial St, the low-angled sun directed through the pillars in the portico of Christ Church casts tall parallel bars of light and shade that travel down Fournier St from the Ten Bells as far as number seven, reflecting off the window panes to to create a fleeting pattern like stars within the gloom of the old church wall.
As you can see from these photographs, I captured these transient effects of light with my camera to share with you as a keepsake of winter sunshine, for consolation when those clouds descend again.
The last ray
The shadow of the cornice of Christ Church upon the Rectory
The shadow of the pillars of Christ Church upon Fournier St
Windows in Fournier St reflecting upon the church wall
In Princelet St
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The Secretary Of State Steps In
Thanks to all the letters written by you – the readers of Spitalfields Life – Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State, has stepped in and issued a Holding Direction to Tower Hamlet Council which prevents them proceeding with approving the Whitechapel Bell Foundry planning application for change of use to a boutique hotel while he considers what to do.
If you have not yet written to the Secretary of State, you should do so at once to PCU@communities.gsi.gov.uk
Emphasise the national and international significance of the bell foundry and point out that the planning application causes ‘substantial harm’ to an important heritage asset. Explain there is a viable scheme to continue the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a proper working foundry and ask him to hold a Public Inquiry.
You may also like to read about
A Letter to the Secretary of State
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
The Hackney Yearbook
Behold the wonders of commerce and retail over a century ago, courtesy of the Hackney Year Book 1906 from the archive at the Bishopsgate Institute!
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Adverts from Shoreditch Borough Guide
An Important Correction
The email address we published yesterday for you to write to the Secretary of State asking him to call in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry was incorrect.
You email you need to use is PCU@communities.gsi.gov.uk
If you wrote to the wrong address, please resend it to the email above.
We apologise for any confusion, and thank you for your patience and support.
Note that the incorrect email which we published yesterday in good faith was accurately quoted from ‘House of Commons Briefing Paper Number 00930, 31st January 2019, Calling-in planning applications (England).’
Read the full instructions here
