In Search Of Shakespeare’s London
Sir William Pickering, St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, 1574.
Ever since the discovery of the site of William Shakespeare’s first theatre in Shoreditch, I have found myself thinking about where else in London I could locate Shakespeare. The city has changed so much that very little remains from his time and even though I might discover his whereabouts – such as his lodging in Silver St in 1612 – usually the terrain is unrecognisable. Silver St is lost beneath the Barbican now.
Yet, in spite of everything, there are buildings in London that Shakespeare would have known, and, in each case, there are greater or lesser reasons to believe he was there. As the mental list of places where I could enter the same air space as Shakespeare grew, so did my desire to visit them all and discover what remains to meet my eyes that he would also have seen.
Thus it was that I set out under a moody sky in search of Shakespeare’s London – walking first over to St Helen’s Bishopsgate where Shakespeare was a parishioner, according to the parish tax inspector who recorded his failure to pay tax on 15th November 1597. This ancient church is a miraculous survivor of the Fire of London, the Blitz and the terrorist bombings of the nineteen nineties, and contains spectacular monuments that Shakespeare could have seen if he came here, including the eerie somnolent figure of Sir William Pickering of 1574 illustrated above. There is great charm in the diverse collection of melancholic Elizabethan statuary residing here in this quaint medieval church with two naves, now surrounded by modernist towers upon all sides, and there is a colourful Shakespeare window of 1884, the first of several images of him that I encountered upon my walk.
From here, I followed the route that Shakespeare would have known, walking directly South over London Bridge to Southwark Cathedral, where he buried his younger brother Edmund, an actor aged just twenty-seven in 1607, at the cost of twenty shillings “with a forenoone knell of the great bell.” Again there is a Shakespeare window, with scenes from the plays, put up in 1964, and a memorial with an alabaster figure from 1912, yet neither is as touching as the simple stone to poor Edmund in the floor of the choir. I was fascinated by the medieval roof bosses, preserved at the rear of the nave since the Victorians replaced the wooden roof with stone. If Shakespeare had raised his bald pate during a service here, his eye might have caught sight of the appealingly grotesque imagery of these spirited medieval carvings. Most striking is Judas being devoured by Satan, with only a pair of legs protruding from the Devil’s hungry mouth, though I also like the sad face of the old king with icicles for a beard.
Crossing the river again, I looked out for the cormorants that I delight to see as one of the living remnants of Shakespeare’s London, which he saw when he walked out from the theatre onto the river bank, and wrote of so often, employing these agile creatures that can swallow fish whole as as eloquent metaphors of all-consuming Time. My destination was St Giles Cripplegate, where Edmund’s sons who did not live beyond infancy were baptised and William Shakespeare was the witness. Marooned at the centre of the Barbican today like a galleon shipwrecked upon a beach, I did not linger long here because most of the cargo of history this church carried was swept overboard in a fire storm in nineteen forty, when it was bombed and then later rebuilt from a shell. Just as in that searching game where someone advises you if you are getting warmer, I began to feel my trail had started warm but was turning cold.
Yet, resolutely, I walked on through St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell where Shakespeare once brought the manuscripts of his plays for the approval by the Lord Chamberlain before they could be performed. And, from there, I directed my feet along the Strand to the Middle Temple, where, in one of my favourite corners of the city, there is a sense – as you step through the gates – of entering an earlier London, comprised of small squares and alleys arched over by old buildings. Here in Fountain Court, where venerable Mulberry trees supported by iron props surround the pool, stands the magnificent Middle Temple Hall where the first performance of “Twelfth Night” took place in 1602, with Shakespeare playing in the acting company. At last, I had a building where I could be certain that Shakespeare had been present – but it was closed.
I sat in the shade by the fountain and took stock, and questioned my own sentiment now my feet were weary. Yet I could not leave, my curiosity would not let me. Summoning my courage, I walked past all the signs, until I came to the porter’s lodge and asked the gentleman politely if I might see the hall. He stood up, introducing himself as John and assented with a smile, graciously leading me from the sunlight into the cavernous hundred-foot-long hall, with its great black double hammer-beam roof, like the hand of God with its fingers outstretched or the darkest stormcloud lowering overhead. It was overwhelming.
“You see this table,” said John, pointing to an old dining table at the centre of the hall, “We call this the ‘cup board’ and the top of it is made of the hatch from Sir Francis Drake’s ship ‘The Golden Hind’ that circumnavigated the globe” And then, before I could venture a comment, he continued, “You see that long table at the end – the one that’s the width of the room, twenty-nine feet long – that’s made from a single oak tree which was a gift from Elizabeth I, it was cut at Windsor Great Park, floated down the Thames and constructed in this hall while it was being built. It has never left this room.”
And then John left me alone in the finest Elizabethan hall in Britain. Looking back at the great carved screen, I realised this had served as the backdrop to the performance of ‘”Twelfth Night” and the gallery above was where the musicians played at the opening when Orsino says, “If music be the food of love, play on.” The hall was charged and resonant. Occasioned by the clouds outside, sunlight moved in dappled patterns across the floor from the tall windows above.
I walked back behind the screen where the actors, including Shakespeare, waited, and I walked again into the hall, absorbing the wonder of the scene, emphasised by the extraordinary intricate roof that appeared to defy gravity. It was a place for public display and the show of power, but its elegant proportion and fine detail also permitted it to be a place for quiet focus and poetry. I sat on my own at the head of the twenty-nine foot long table in the only surviving building where one of William Shakespeare’s plays was done in his lifetime, and it was a marvel. I could imagine him there.
Judas swallowed by Satan
An old king at Southwark
St Giles Cripplegate where Edmund’s sons were baptised and William Shakespeare was the witness.
St John’s Gate where William Shakespeare brought the manuscripts of his plays to the Lord Chamberlain’s office to seek approval.
The Middle Temple Hall where “Twelfth Night” was first performed in 1602.
The twenty-nine foot long table made from a single oak from Windsor Great Park.
The wooden screen that served as the backdrop to the first production of” Twelfth Night.”
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At Shakespeare’s First Theatre
The Door to Shakespeare’s London
A Few Of Hackney Mosaic Project’s Greatest Hits
We have two weeks left of our crowdfund to raise the money to publish a book of Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project but we still have quite a way to go to reach our target.
So I thought I would publish a gallery of a few of the Project’s greatest hits today to give you a sense of the scale and scope of their achievement, creating so many wonderful mosaics that only a book can do justice to them all.
Click here to learn more and contribute
Please search in the pockets of your old coats and down the back of the sofa to see if you can find something you can contribute if you have not done so already. If you have any wealthy aunts or uncles who might like to support our project, please forward this post to them.
We have received some wonderful messages of support recently.
‘I am donating because I would love to own this book. It needs to be published. Robin from California’ – Robin Whitney
‘I hope the necessary money is raised. The mosaics of the Hackney Mosaic Project are fabulous.’ – Penny Tunbridge
‘The Hackney Mosaics are the most uplifting example of civic art I have seen this century.’ – Michael Zilkha
‘Another beautiful project, on the ground, and in print!’ – Iain Boyd
‘Congratulations for putting this together. It’s going to be an amazing book.’ – Helen Miles
‘What a wonderful initiative to celebrate and share the brilliant Hackney Mosaics.’ – Penelope Thompson
‘Very happy to support this great project’ – Mary Winch
‘Love this project, can’t wait to see it come to life. Every Gentle Author project is wonderful.’ – Frances Mayhew
Pavement at Shepherdess Walk
Shepherdess Walk
Shepherdess Walk
Shepherdess Walk
Somerford Estate
Somerford Estate
Acton Estate, Haggerston
Packington Estate, Islington
Tower Court Estate, Clapton
Tower Court Estate, Clapton
Tower Court Estate, Clapton
Tower Court Estate, Clapton
Tower Court Estate, Clapton
Hoxton Varieties, Pitfield St
Heroes of the pandemic, Linscott Rd
Butterfield Green
Private garden commission
Private garden commission
St Paul’s Churchyard, Hackney
St Paul’s Churchyard, Hackney
St Paul’s Churchyard, Hackney
Private garden commission, Hackney Downs
Hounds of Hackney Downs
Hounds of Hackney Downs
Playground Shelter, Hackney Downs
Playground Shelter, Hackney Downs
Playground Shelter, Hackney Downs
Grasmere Primary School
Click here to contribute to the publication of TESSA HUNKIN’S HACKNEY MOSAIC PROJECT
Hackney Mosaic Project At London Zoo
Tessa Hunkin works on her mosaic while lions prowl nearby
I accompanied Tessa Hunkin of Hackney Mosaic Project to the lions’ enclosure at London Zoo when she installed her masterpiece while big cats prowled around. Commissioned by the Zoological Society of London, the magnificent mosaic was the result of four months work involving around thirty people, with a core of fifteen experienced mosaicists, to create a centrepiece for the ‘Land of the Lions’ attraction at the Zoo.
The six panels of the mosaic portray the forest of Gir in Gujarat which is the origin of the lions at London Zoo. In Tessa’s design, Langur monkeys harvest fruit in the tree tops while Chital deer follow them below, scavenging windfalls and leftovers dropped from above. Yet this relationship serves a dual purpose for the Chital, since the Langurs see lions coming from far away, thereby warning the Chital when to take flight.
All through the winter months, the team at Hackney Mosaic worked in the pavilion on Hackney Downs, painstakingly glueing thousands of tiny tesserae to a large brown paper panel with Tessa’s design traced in reverse. Once this was complete, the panels were impressed onto a rendered wall at the zoo by Walter Bernardin, a mosaicist of lifelong experience, and the paper was removed to reveal the finished mosaic in all its glory, with the design the right way round.
It was a tense process, tearing away the backing paper without removing pieces of mosaic and then applying grouting. In fact, so all-consuming was this task that Tessa and Walter continued at their work without even noticing the lions prowling around in curiosity…
The team at Hackney Mosaic with the completed mosaic
Tessa’s final design
Photo composite of the work in progress, seen in reverse (click to enlarge)
The first panel installed at London Zoo
Mosaicist Walter Bernadin removes the backing paper and fixes the mosaic with grouting
The completed mosaic installed at London Zoo
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The Mosaic Makers of Hackney Downs
Stitches In Time At St Anne’s, Limehouse
Back in 2011, it was my privilege to interview Di England, the founder of Stitches in Time. Although Di passed in 2017, her creations live on and the magnificent quilts are now the subject of a retrospective exhibition which opens today from 10-4pm at St Anne’s, Limehouse and runs each Friday and Saturday from 10-4pm until September.
This is my portrait of Di England of Stitches in Time taken in 2011 with a tapestry based on the Roque Map of East London, 1746. It is just one of hundreds of elaborate textile pieces, created collaboratively and involving over three thousand people, that she has supervised.
As a consequence, the former Assembly Room of Limehouse Town Hall – in the shadow of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s St Anne’s, Limehouse – was turned into a kind of giant sewing box with a million reels of thread and scraps of fabric are neatly organised in containers. There you could find everything you could need for the embroidery, appliqué, batik, printing, painting and weaving that was involved in the creation of textile masterpieces which tell the story of the East End through stitching. In these works, intricate details reveal the contribution of individuals while the overall conceptions were a devised collectively, requiring critical decisions about the nature of the social pictures that result.
Inspired by the trade union banners that were once housed there when the building was a museum of Labour history, Stitches in Time was involved with all kinds of groups across the East End to create pictorial histories of communities, devised as endeavours to bring people together in the practise of making.
In a rare moment of repose, I was able to sit down with Di in a quiet corner of the Assembly Room – surrounded by piles of textiles and sewing paraphernalia – while she spoke to me of her own background and how it all started.
“I was an ordinary girl from St Albans. I had signed up for Social Anthropology because I was interested in people and instead I discovered it was all about statistics. But when I went to St Albans Arts College, I rang up my mother and said, “I found the right thing, first time.” Yet although I wanted to be an artist, I couldn’t think of a way to relate it to everyday life. We were from Yorkshire originally, but my father died when I was very young and my mother came South to earn a living. She was a primary school teacher, an educationalist with a passionate belief in the expressive arts.
I trained in painting & sculpture at the Bristol & West of England Academy and at Chelsea College of Art. At Chelsea, the textiles department was next door and I responded to that. My grandmother was a seamstress and two of my aunts were dressmakers who rode motor bikes in the nineteen thirties. Even as a child, I would collect leaves to make dyes and I gathered boxes of textiles.
I worked as a teacher at Newham in the early seventies before I joined Freeform Arts, a community arts organisation in Dalston and I found it refreshing because it was all to do with making, putting art where it wasn’t removed from everyday life. The question we asked ourselves was how could you create things that had relevance for people in their daily lives. At first, the Arts Council said, “We will fund the roses but not the dandelions.” though gradually they accepted the idea that art could be created where people lived, in the workplace and in schools, and they started a community arts panel.
Stitches in Time had its origin in 1993, I was doing a project at Beatrice Tate School in Bethnal Green, designing a mosaic, looking at the legacy of the Huguenots in the area. And I thought, “What were they doing here?” I had just finished designing a mural in Carnaby St in Soho which also had Huguenots, and I realised that both locations were gates to the city. It made me appreciate what refugees have contributed. I thought, “What can I do that everyone can participate in?”
At that time, I was setting up a print workshop in the Spitalfields Market and we made tapestries there that were a cultural history of the East End told by its people. We hung them up in the market and discovered there was huge demand for tapestries as community projects. By 1999, we received funding to create this organisation, Stitches in Time, with a special emphasis on local history. We moved into Limehouse Town Hall in 2001 and the next year we became a registered charity.
Bonnard, Chagall and Ingres were my inspirations, when I was a painter, but I have found a different way to make paintings in textiles now.”
The Tower of London by Bluegate Fields Infants School & Mothers’ Group.
St Dunstan’s by Members of St Dunstan’s Parish, Stepney.
Life Cycle of the Silk Worm by Shapla Primary School & Mothers’ Group.
The Jacquard Loom by Bancroft Women’s Group.
Jewish Wedding by Kobi Nazrul Centre.
Petticoat Lane by Heba Women’s Project.
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At Stephen Walters & Sons, Silkweavers
Hackney Mosaic Project In Regent’s Park
Creators of the mosaic, Lisa Werner, Jackie Ormond, Gallina Sheke, Robin Pritchard, Ken Edwards, Janice Desler, Katrina & Iris Harvey, Gabi Liers, Rada Stilianova, Rose Woolmer & Tessa Hunkin
I cycled over to Regent’s Park to visit my friends at Hackney Mosaic Project as they celebrated the unveiling of their masterpiece in the children’s playground at the Parkway entrance, Camden Town.
Designer Tessa Hunkin and her team have conjured an elegant circular pavement within a pergola where children play on rainy days. Divided in slices like a pie, the design features whimsical images of the wild creatures who inhabit the park desporting themselves at play in a pastoral scene – hedgehogs flying a kite, a heron with a hula hoop, a squirrel blowing bubbles, a fox balancing a ball on his nose, and more.
‘Our team took on the task with incredible enthusiasm and it was all finished in three months,’ explained Tessa. ‘Installation was delayed by the unsettled weather but, when we finally got three dry days, Walter Bernardin, the master mosaic fixer, was able to complete the job with his usual skill.’
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William Kent’s Arch In Bow
Wisteria is coming into flower across London now and this one in Bow is a favourite.
‘a curious vestige from a catalogue of destruction’
This fine eighteenth century rusticated arch designed by the celebrated architect and designer William Kent was originally part of Northumberland House, the London residence of the Percy family in the Strand which was demolished in 1874. Then the arch was installed in the garden of the Tudor House in St Leonard’s Street, Bow, by George Gammon Rutty before it was moved here to the Bromley by Bow Centre in 1997, where it makes a magnificent welcoming entrance today.
The Tudor House was purchased in a good condition of preservation from the trustees of George Gammon Rutty after his death in 1898 by the London County Council, who chose to demolish it and turn the gardens into a public park. At this point, there were two statues situated at the foot of each of the pillars of the arch but they went missing in the nineteen-forties. One of the last surviving relics of the old village of Bromley by Bow, the house derived its name from a member of the Tudor family who built it in the late sixteenth century adjoining the Old Palace and both were lovingly recorded by CR Ashbee in the first volume of the Survey of London in 1900.
The Survey was created by Ashbee, while he was living in Bow running the Guild of Handicrafts at Essex House (another sixteenth century house nearby that was demolished), in response to what he saw as the needless loss of the Old Palace and other important historic buildings in the capital.
Ever since I first discovered William Kent’s beautiful lonely arch – a curious vestige from a catalogue of destruction – I have been meaning to go back to Bow take a photograph of it when the wisteria was in bloom and, although for a couple of years circumstances conspired to prevent me, eventually I was able to do so and here you see the result.
William Kent (1685 –1748) Architect, landscape and furniture designer
Northumberland House by Canaletto, 1752
Northumberland House shortly before demolition, 1874
William Kent’s arch in the grounds of the Tudor House, Bow, in 1900 with its attendant statues, as illustrated in the first volume of the Survey of London by CR Ashbee (Image courtesy Survey of London/ Bishopsgate Institute)
William Kent’s arch at St Leonard’s Street, Bromley by Bow
The Northumberland House Arch was restored with the support of the Heritage of London Trust
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At The Garden Of Hope
We have raised over £6000 now but we still have a way to go.
Click here to learn more about Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project Book
(Click to enlarge this portrait of those involved in making the mosaic)
It was my pleasure to take a trip to Tottenham to spend an afternoon at the Mental Health Unit where Tessa Hunkin and members of the Hackney Mosaic Project had been worked with patients and staff over fourteen weeks to create a mosaic entitled The Garden of Hope.
At the centre of the unit is a yard enclosed by buildings on all sides and lined with astroturf. Through discussion, the notion of conceiving of this space as The Garden of Hope arose and the heartfelt iconography of the mosaic was devised, featuring a pair of lions as representatives of the residents at the unit, with open gates and road leading to a white tower incarnating the possibility of reaching a better place.
Rosalie Simpson served rice and beans and we sat at long tables to eat our food in celebration of the joint achievement. Everyone was extremely proud of the beautiful mural that had been created and the collective desire that it represents in such poignant fashion, and – at this particular moment in a troubled year – it is a sentiment we can all understand.
Rosalie Simpson cooked up rice and beans in celebration of the completion of the mosaic
(Click to enlarge and study the mosaic in detail)
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