An Interview With Tessa Hunkin
Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I went along to meet Tessa Hunkin at Hackney Mosaic Project‘s workshop in the pavilion on Hackney Downs. Sarah photographed the mosaic makers at work while Tessa explained to me how it all came about.
Janice Desler and Jamie Johnson at work
The Gentle Author How did you start making mosaics?
Tessa Hunkin I was working as an architect but I was frustrated because I was always telling people to do things that I did not know how to do myself. I wanted to learn how to do something well so that I could design things that were elegant in terms of how they were made. I also wanted to work with colour because architecture is rather a colourless endeavour.
Coincidentally, a friend, Emma Biggs, had seen a programme about the Italian community in London. She had been inspired by film of the old Italian mosaicists at work and began making mosaics in her spare room. So I went and joined her and we worked together for fifteen years. We set up a company called Mosaic Workshop and acquired a workshop on the Holloway Road.
The Gentle Author What kind of work were you making?
Tessa Hunkin It was fairly hideous because we did not know what we were doing. We did doorsteps for shops and so many toilets and bathrooms, miles of Roman borders, rope borders and rolling waves that made us cry with boredom. But we were developing our skills and we began to get more interesting jobs and bigger canvases to play with.
The Gentle Author How did you start creating your own designs?
Tessa Hunkin I had begun developing my own designs alongside commissions from designers. Quite a lot were for rich people who were opinionated or had interior designers, so there were a lot of ‘cooks’ and often designs got compromised.
My colleague Emma pointed out that in public or community art you get to do the design and that might be more liberating creatively. Unfortunately, we only started thinking like this after 2008 when much of the community funding had dried up thanks to the government’s policy of austerity.
There was a reprieve for the London Olympics when there was a bit more money around. So that was our opportunity to try this path. Partly it was the desire to have more design freedom but also I wanted to work with people who might enjoy making mosaics, and who might benefit from and appreciate the creative process in the way that I did.
I was attracted by the idea that you might be able to find volunteers who were not in it for money, but who who loved the medium and enjoyed the process in the way I did. Going into community art was a way of combining all these aspirations.
The Gentle Author Where did it begin?
Tessa Hunkin I had an idea. I found this book of Tunisian mosaics and it was a light bulb moment, looking at these mosaics which depicted everyday life in Roman North Africa.
The book explained how archaeologists had learnt so much about the way the Romans lived and the tools they used. The mosaics were full of life and variety, yet they hung together in a very beautiful and satisfying way.
I thought, ‘Yes, this would work really well as a group project – everybody could contribute a little bit – and also for the Olympics, it could record how we lived in 2012.’
When all the digital data and Google have fizzled out, the mosaic will still be there to show people using mobile phones and iPods. In fact, the mobile phones in the mosaic are already out of date – they have little aerials on them – so it is already fulfilling its purpose.
The Gentle Author Where did you do this?
Tessa Hunkin Hackney were looking for a project for people in recovery from addiction and they were attracted this idea because it was uncontroversial. I spent a lot of time walking around Hackney, which has more parks than any other London borough. I visited them all, photographing suitable walls, but the council did not want mosaics on any of those. Instead, they found a hidden little corner in Shepherdess Walk, off the City Road, and that was the first.
The Gentle Author How did you find it when you began to work with non-professionals? Did you have any experience as a teacher or therapist?
Tessa Hunkin I had done some work at a mental health project. I became involved because Mosaic Workshop, as well as making mosaics, ran a shop selling mosaic materials.
People from the Westminster mental health project came along as customers and that was how I met Susie Balazs who was a wonderful teacher. She was very friendly and her group were always so excited coming to her mosaic workshop and have a go. They possessed a kind of enthusiasm that I saw was invaluable and I wanted to harness that too.
So I only had a little bit of experience and I was nervous about the addiction angle because it was not something I had come across before. In fact, there is a lot of overlap between mental health problems and addiction which can often originate from self-medication. It was a steep learning curve for me, working out how to explain things clearly to beginners and finding tasks that would be pleasurable rather than painful.
One of the elements that came in useful were the Roman borders. These were the very things that had driven us mad when we were doing miles of them for commercial projects but I discovered they work well as learning exercises for beginners. Based closely on the Roman models, they comprise single units endlessly repeated, flowing easily from one to the next.
I had found a way of getting people started and I could see it was working. People liked the amount of concentration that it required even to follow quite a simple pattern but it engaged them sufficiently that they stopped thinking about all the other things that might be preoccupying them. At the end of the session they did not want to leave. That was incredibly satisfying.
To begin with, I divided up the sessions – one for the local community and another for the recovering addicts. But my mental health clients from Westminster also wanted to come and join. For a while, they all had separate sessions.
But they were all so keen, they wanted to come as often as they could. So I gave up the divisions and let everybody could come to everything. Eventually, we had children running around, recovering addicts, some not-so-recovered people with quite serious mental health problems and people who lived close by, all sitting together making mosaics. It seemed to work out. They finished the mosaics much more quickly than I was anticipating and we have never stopped since.
The Gentle Author I know it has been a great source of inspiration to you, working in this way, and I wanted to know what these people brought to the work. How have you created structures that allow individual input?
Tessa Hunkin That was another thing I learned from the Romans, through comparing Roman mosaics with nineteenth century mosaics. Those recent mosaics are quite formulaic. They have high quality craftsmanship but they are slightly dead, whereas the Roman ones have much more life to them. They are more irregular, partly because they were using natural materials – stone and things which cut irregularly – but also, because they had a variety of abilities at work. The character of the makers is preserved in mosaic.
The Gentle Author What do you think the people involved take away from it? How is it therapeutic for them?
Tessa Hunkin It gives people a holiday from their head. It is a simple task that requires concentration and produces something at the end, so it is never time wasted because you can see where your time has gone.
I believe this is fundamental. Once, there were lots of jobs that involved working with your hands but most of those no longer exist in our post-industrial world and for some I think this is an unacknowledged loss.
If you have never try working with your hands you do not know the pleasure and the benefit it can be. It is often dismissed as women’s work – embroidery and knitting and crochet and all those fantastic things – but they are as fundamental as sport.
The Gentle Author Has your approach to design changed through all this?
Tessa Hunkin The gift is that when a commission comes along, now I have all these lovely people who help me create it. Every time I start a design, I think about how to make it as simple and elegant as possible so it is pleasurable to make. I want it to be both beautiful to look at, so the wider community benefits from it too, and I love
creating mosaics for public spaces because I want as many people to see them as possible. If people have enjoyed making them I think that comes out in the work. If they are beautiful to look at as well as pleasurable to make, then that is a win-win.
The Gentle Author I have seen community mosaic projects that are of social value but sometimes the aesthetic is quite random. Yet your work also has this superlative aesthetic quality which makes it outstanding. How you have you reconciled this, raising the bar with all the participants?
Tessa Hunkin They help me willingly and amazingly, but they also get the opportunity to do their own things. That element was not there at the beginning of the project. I have realised that it was a bit much expecting them only to do my bidding, so they alternate between working on commissions where they obey my rules and doing their own projects. I hope they learn from the way I configured mosaics and can translate that knowledge back to their own work.
When you have experience of a technique, you can work out how to achieve strong effects in a way that appears effortless and simple. The Romans understood this and we follow their system, it is a tradition as much as it is my bidding.
The Gentle Author Are you speaking for that tradition?
Tessa Hunkin I am speaking for the tradition and I am also channelling the tradition. Hackney Mosaic Project is a group, a social group, which is particularly important for people in recovery from addiction who often lose their friends. They can become very isolated so this is a way of bringing people together and giving them a social world. The best mosaic of all is the combination of these widely different people who come together and, for a time, form a cohesive and mutually-supportive group. For some, they have replaced one addiction with an addiction to mosaic.
The Gentle Author I am always been touched by the degree of emotional ownership the makers have of the work and their sense of pride.
Tessa Hunkin In our public work, we try to produce something that people genuinely admire. We have now won a real audience and acquired a reputation, and we are very proud of the work we have done, which helps everyone’s self-esteem.
Rosalind Reeder
Janice Desler
Ken Edwards and Katy Dixon
Gabi Liers
Deb Rindl
Katy Dixon
Jamie Johnson
Rosalind Reeder and Tessa Hunkin
Mary Helena
Rosalind Reeder
Janice Desler and Jamie Johnson
Linda Hood
Tessa Hunkin
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
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The Ceremony Of The Widow’s Sixpence
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Click here to learn more about Tess Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project
Distribution of buns to widows in the churchyard of St Bartholomew the Great
St Bartholomew the Great is one of my favourite churches in the City, a rare survivor of the Great Fire, it boasts the best Norman interior in London. Composed of ancient rough-hewn stonework, riven with deep shadow where feint daylight barely illuminates the accumulated dust of ages, this is one of those rare atmospheric places where you can still get a sense of the medieval world glimmering. Founded by Rahere in 1123, the current structure is the last vestige of an Augustinian Priory upon the edge of Smithfield, where once martyrs were burnt at the stake as public entertainment and the notorious St Bartholomew Fair was celebrated each summer from 1133 until 1855.
In such a location, the Good Friday tradition of the distribution of charity in the churchyard to poor widows of the parish sits naturally. Once known as the ‘Widow’s Sixpence,’ this custom was institutionalised by Joshua Butterworth in 1887, who created a trust in his name with an investment of twenty-one pounds and ten shillings. The declaration of the trust states its purpose thus – “On Good Friday in each year to distribute in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Great the sum of 6d. to twenty-one poor widows, and to expend the remainder of such dividends in buns to be given to children attending such distribution, and he desired that the Charity intended to be thereby created should be called ‘the Butterworth Charity.'”
Those of us gathered in the churchyard at St Bartholomew the Great on Good Friday were blessed with sunlight. Yet we could not resist a twinge of envy for the clerics in their heavy cassocks and warm velvet capes as they processed from the church in a formal column, with priests at the head attended by vergers bearing wicker baskets of freshly buttered Hot Cross Buns, and a full choir bringing up the rear.
In the nineteen twenties, the sum distributed to each recipient was increased to two shillings and sixpence, and later to four shillings. Resplendent in his scarlet robes, Rev Martin Dudley, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great climbed upon the table tomb at the centre of the churchyard traditionally used for that purpose and enacted the motions of this arcane ceremony – enquiring of the assembly if there were a poor widow of the parish in need of twenty shillings. To his surprise, a senior female raised her hand. “That’s never happened before!” he declared to the easy amusement of the crowd.
I detected a certain haste to get to the heart of the proceedings – the distribution of the Hot Cross Buns. Rev Dudley directed the vergers to start with choir who exercised admirable self-control in only taking one each. Then, as soon as the choir had been fed, the vergers set out around the boundaries of the yard where senior females with healthy appetites reached forward eagerly to take their allotted Hot Cross Buns in hand. The tense anticipation gave way to good humour as everyone delighted in the strangeness of the ritual which rendered ordinary buns exotic. Reaching the end of the line at the furthest extent of the churchyard, the priests wasted no time in satisfying their own appetites and, for a few minutes, silence prevailed as the entire assembly munched their buns.
Then Rev Martin returned to his central position upon the table tomb. “And now, because there is no such thing as free buns,” he announced, “we’re going to sing a hymn.” Yet we were more than happy to oblige, standing replete with buns on Good Friday and enjoying the April sunlight.
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, a century ago.
John Betjeman once lived in this house overlooking the churchyard.
The ceremony of the Widow’s Sixpence in the nineteen twenties.
“God’s blessing upon the frosts and cold!”
A crowd gathers for the ceremony a hundred years ago.
Hungry widows line up for buns.
The churchyard in the nineteenth century.
Rev Martin Dudley BD MSc MTh PhD FSA FRHistS AKC is the 25th Rector since the Reformation.
Testing the buns.
The clerics ensure no buns go to waste.
Hymns in the cold – “There is a green hill far away without a city wall…”
The Norman interior of St Bartholomew the Great at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Gatehouse prior to bombing in World War I and reconstruction.
Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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The Hounds Of Hackney Downs
Please support our crowdfund to publish this splendid book
“A beautiful book about Hackney Mosaic Project will be the best reward for all the people who have worked on the mosaics, bringing their achievement to a wider public and giving them the recognition they so well deserve.”
Tessa Hunkin
I was among the first to admire these canine masterpieces created by Hackney Mosaic Project under the presiding genius of Tessa Hunkin when they were installed on Hackney Downs. Tessa’s design took inspiration from the canine users of the park and proud owners were lining up at once to identify their pets immortalised upon the wall.
The mosaic artists’ names
I was also there when the second instalment of Hackney Mosaic Project’s series of portraits of the dogs of Hackney Downs was installed. When I asked Tessa how it was possible to find so many different ways of portraying dogs in mosaic, she replied that it was simple – the infinite variety of the dogs provided the inspiration.
The mosaic artists
THE HACKNEY MOSAIC PROJECT is seeking commissions, so if you would like a mosaic please get in touch hackneymosaic@gmail.com
Bluebells At Bow
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With a few bluebells in flower in my garden in Spitalfields, I was inspired make a visit to Bow Cemetery and view the display of bluebells sprouting under the tall forest canopy that has grown over the graves of the numberless East Enders buried there. In each season of the the year, this hallowed ground offers me an arcadian refuge from the city streets and my spirits always lift as I pass between the ancient brick walls that enclose it, setting out to lose myself among the winding paths, lined by tombstones and overarched with trees.
Equivocal weather rendered the timing of my trip as a gamble, and I was at the mercy of chance whether I should get there and back in sunshine. Yet I tried to hedge my bets by setting out after a shower and walking quickly down the Whitechapel Rd beneath a blue sky of small fast-moving clouds – though, even as I reached Mile End, a dark thunderhead came eastwards from the City casting gloom upon the land. It was too late to retrace my steps and instead I unfurled my umbrella in the cemetery as the first raindrops fell, taking shelter under a horse chestnut, newly in leaf, as the shower became a downpour.
Standing beneath the dripping tree in the half-light of the storm, I took a survey of the wildflowers around me, primroses spangling the green, the white star-like stitchwort adorning graves, a scattering of palest pink ladies smock highlighting the ground cover, yellow celandines sharp and bright against the dark green leaves, violets and wild strawberries nestling close to the earth and may blossom and cherry blossom up above – and, of course, the bluebells’ hazy azure mist shimmering between the lines of stones tilting at irregular angles. Alone beneath the umbrella under the tree in the heart of the vast graveyard, I waited. It was the place of death, but all around me there was new growth.
Once the rain relented sufficiently for me to leave my shelter, I turned towards the entrance in acceptance that my visit was curtailed. The pungent aroma of wild garlic filled the damp air. But then – demonstrating the quick-changing weather that is characteristic of April – the clouds were gone and dazzling sunshine descended in shafts through the forest canopy turning the wet leaves into a million tiny mirrors, reflecting light in a vision of phantasmagoric luminosity. Each fresh leaf and petal and branch glowed with intense colour after the rain. I stood still and cast my eyes around to absorb every detail in this sacred place. It was a moment of recognition that has recurred throughout my life, the awe-inspiring rush of growth of plant life in England in spring.
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Find out more at Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park
Easter Procession In Stepney
Thanks to more than sixty readers’ contributions we have already raised over £3,800 since we launched our crowdfund last Saturday.
Click here to learn about our crowdfund to publish this splendid book
Here are some contributor’s comments –
Hoping you make the target as I’d love to buy the book, the mosaics are just so wonderful. Good luck! X
– Alexandra
What a wonderful project! It’s sixty years since I left London to live in the Isle of Man, but I’m very happy to support the creation of these beautiful panels for Londoners to enjoy.
– Valerie
My Granddad lived on a narrowboat on the River Lee at Hackney for about 20 years then moved into the land as he got older and remained in Hackney until he passed away. I am sure he would have loved seeing this.
– Lee
I have admired the beautiful mosaics of Tessa Hunkin for several years now and am particularly happy that they will be recorded for posterity in one of The Gentle Author’s handsome books.
– Gilbert
Adding magic to the city. Thanks Tessa for all the craft and graft behind these magical creations !
– Oliver
These mosaics are beautiful. We’re happy to help.
– Dianne
Thank you for endeavouring to share the beauty of these mosaics with the world!
– Jennifer
Excellent idea and will make a beautiful book.
– Annie
Great project (actual mosaics and book)and look forward to the ‘Women at Work in the East End.’
– Rosie
This book will be a great testament to Tessa’s lovely work.
– Gilly
I’m so inspired by the mosaics I’ve seen. Will be in London next month and hope to visit more of them.
– Carol
I am delighted about this project and very much hope to read the book in due course.
– Sara
Delighted you are doing a book on these beautiful projects.
– Dorothy
Best wishes and luck with this wonderful project.
– Julia
It’s a privilege to be able to support Tessa’s work!
– John
Good luck with this most interesting project.
– Claire
Another beautiful book idea. Thank you.
-Anne
Delighted to support this wonderful project.
– Anne
Wish I could give more, but am only a poor widow woman whose roof is giving out! Tessa’s work is wonderful. Very exciting that it might be taken up in other places.
– Jenny
I love the mosaics done by Tessa’s team and can’t wait to see the book!
– Jill
Every time I visit my daughter in Hackney I pass by one of these marvellous murals. Beautifully designed and put together I can only imagine how inspirational they are for those who make them and who are able to see them every day. All power to the Gentle Author.
– Arabella
Such wonderful work, and such a great project!
– Vivienne
What a wonderful idea to publish a book celebrating Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project. These community mosaics are a wonderful life-enhancing addition to London life.
– Jenny
Click here to learn about our crowdfund to publish this splendid book
Every Easter, George & Dunstan, donkeys at Stepney City Farm enjoy an outing when they join the Parishioners of St Dunstan’s for the annual procession around the vicinity on Palm Sunday – and, one year, Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined the enthusiastic throng on a cold and grey spring morning.
Walking down from Whitechapel, Colin & I followed Stepney Way, which was once a path across the fields used by worshippers when St Dunstan’s was the parish church for the whole of Tower Hamlets. St Dunstan founded it in 952 and it stands today as earliest surviving building after the Tower on this side of London.
At the old stone church, we discovered the wardens were eager to show us their ancient silver, a mace and a staff, with images of St Dunstan, the Tower and a Galleon referring to the days when this was the parish of seafarers. Once, all those who were born or died at sea were entered here in the parish register.
Curate Chris Morgan led off across the churchyard along the fine avenue of plane trees, swinging incense and followed by church wardens, sidesmen, George & Dunstan the donkeys, members of the parish and a solo trumpeter, with the Rector Trevor Critchlow bringing up the rear.
Anyone still nursing a hangover from Saturday night might have been astounded to be awoken by the sound of a heavenly host, and parted the curtains to discover this rag tag parade. Yet it was a serious commemoration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem in which the streets of Stepney became transformed into the Via Sacra for a morning.
They marched through the empty terraced streets, past the large development site, turned left at the curry restaurant, passing the pizza takeaway and the beauty parlour, before turning left again at the youth centre to re-enter the churchyard. Then there was just time to pet the donkeys before they filed into the church to warm up again and begin Sunday morning prayers. And this was how Easter began in Stepney.
St Dunstan with his metalworkers’ tongs on top of the seventeenth century mace
A galleon upon an eighteenth century staff is a reminder St Dunstan’s was the parish of seafarers
Tower of London upon the reverse of the staff
Sidesmens’ batons from the era of George IV
Julian Cass, Sidesman
Jenny Ellwood, Sidesperson, and Sarah Smith, Parish Clerk
Trevor Critchlow, Rector of St Dunstan’s
Curate Chris Morgan leads the procession
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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The Mosaic Makers Of Hackney
Thanks to readers’ contributions we have already raised over £2,800 since we launched our crowdfund on Saturday. Below you can read about the very first Hackney Mosaic Project mosaic created in 2012.
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Next time you are walking up Shepherdess Walk in Hoxton and you pass that sinister tunnel with the worn flagstones, leading under the shabby nineteenth century terrace, I recommend you take courage and pass through it to the park at the other end where a wonderful surprise awaits you.
Artist Tessa Hunkin and around one hundred and fifty people worked for two years to create an elaborate set of mosaics in Shepherdess Walk Park. These breathtakingly beautiful pieces of work are destined to become an attraction in their own right – drawing people from far and wide to this corner of Hoxton – but before the crowds arrived, I had the pleasure of going over to admire them in the company of Tessa and couple of the stalwart mosaic makers, as they contemplated the completion of their mighty task which has transformed an unloved part of the park into an inspirational spot.
Taking the lyrical name of Shepherdess Walk as a starting point, the first mosaic portrays the shepherdesses that once drove their sheep through here when Hoxton was all fields. Next to this, a double wall panel illustrates park life throughout the seasons of the year in the East End while, underfoot, a pair of pavement mosaics show the wild flowers that persist, all illustrated in superb botanic detail. The quality of execution and subtle sense of colour in Tessa Hunkin’s designs combine with humorous observation of the detail of the social and the natural world to create works of lasting value which residents of Hoxton can enjoy for generations to come.
Ken Edwards
“That’s my little rabbit, I named him ‘Randy.’ I’ve been coming here for over a year but, the first time, I thought it was something I wouldn’t be able to do. Yet Tessa showed me how to do it and I’ve been coming ever since. We work each Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, and every other Saturday when the youngsters from the Estate come to help. Even when you are not here, it’s what you think about. I live over in Well St and I walk here. Coming here, it helps with your sanity. We talk, we laugh, we joke. I love coming here, it’s very therapeutic, it’s a family atmosphere. I was a painter and decorator before and when you paint a flat that’s it, but this work that we’ve done is going to be here long after we’ve all gone and that’s very important to me.”
Katy Dixon
“I joined the summer before last. I am an artist and maker and I believe that art can heal people. We work as a group and enjoy the art of conversation together, and I imagine that’s how people would have worked on mosaics a long time ago in Pompeii. We like to listen to music while we work but it’s not always easy to find music that we can all agree upon. We tend to listen to reggae because it has an earthy quality.”
Tessa Hunkin
“We’ve made a little bit of Carthage here in Hoxton. I was inspired by the Roman mosaics of North Africa. It was my idea, I’ve been making mosaics for twenty-five years and I started working with people with mental health problems. I like working with groups of people on large compositions that they can be proud of. Mosaic-making is very time-consuming and laborious, so it seemed a good idea to work with people who have too much time, for whom filling time can be a problem. Also, I’m very interested in the historical precedents and that gives the work another dimension. This project started in July 2011 and it was going to be for six months but, when we came to end of the first mosaic nobody wanted the empty shop that is our workshop, so we just carried on.”
Nicky Turner
“When Tessa showed me the work, I thought it was interesting and I wanted to try but, originally, it was only going to be until the end of the year and now I’ve been here two years. I live in Stratford, two bus rides away, but I come two or three times a week. It’s always different here, so I never get bored. I worked on the borders, and I get satisfaction and self-esteem from doing this work.
Work in progress on the new Pitfield St mosaic, celebrating the former Hoxton Palace of Varieties
Nicky shows off his rings.
Ken with the poem he wrote about the mosaics
Katy with one of the sheep she will lead to the ceremony on Thursday, dressed as a shepherdess
The old tunnel from Shepherdess Walk that leads to the mosaics in the park.
Click on this image to enlarge
Click on this image to enlarge
Spring At Spitalfields City Farm
Click here to learn about my crowdfund to publish this splendid book
Contributing Photographer Rachel Ferriman has been documenting the seasons at Spitalfields City Farm
At last, the spring that we all been yearning for has indubitably arrived and Spitalfields City Farm is open to east enders seeking solace, young and old waiting in eagerness to reacquaint themselves with Nature.
It was my pleasure to be greeted at the farm gate by development manager Jamie Morrish who kindly took me on a ramble around the precincts. With his worn tweed jacket and white beard, he looks the very picture of a rural retainer yet he revealed he is fascinated by the urban cobbled roads traversing the site, remnants of the streets that once stood where now are fields. ‘They tell a story of what used to be,’ he explained, ‘and I think that’s important.’
Already the vegetable patch at the farm is full of life, with lines of Swiss Chard flourishing, and potatoes, beetroot, onions and broad beans on the way. ‘As an experiment we are trying out a variety of different vegetables to see which things work,’ Jamie explained proudly. ‘It’s a bit of fun because when you see all these coloured leaves, it’s really attractive. We’re going to have an amazing array this year and we’re going to be producing salad boxes for local people.’
I was very impressed by the way rainwater is collected on the roof of a shed and drains along the gutters to pipes which run underneath the vegetable patch, automatically watering the plants. Jamie led me into a polytunnel where shiny green lettuces flourished in the humid moist atmosphere. Outside, the crab apples were heavy with pink blossom and, despite the late frosts, a plum tree had already developed hundreds tiny green fruit covering the branches. ‘It’s going to be good year for fruit,’ Jamie exclaimed in delight. ‘We’re in a warm pocket here.’
‘We’re going to plant a long border for bees and birds,’ he continued introducing a new idea and showing me a rectangle of bare soil. ‘We focus a lot on production for humans to eat and now we are going to pay attention to the needs of bees and birds. This is going to be a perennial bed and will take a few years to mature.’
A loud chorus of birdsong accompanied our ramble, interrupted only by the trains of the East End London line passing close by on their journey between Whitechapel and Shoreditch High St.
Jamie introduced me to a pair of handsome Buff Orpington chicks only a few weeks old. ‘One was born with splayed legs, so we splinted his legs together,’ Jamie admitted protectively. ‘When he hatched, he couldn’t balance, he kept tipping over and falling on his back, but Emma took care of him by bandaging his legs and, now his legs have straightened, he’s fine. He’s grown quite big.’
Thus I present my evidence to you, should you require it, that – after a few stumbles – spring has truly arrived in Spitalfields.
Crab apple in flower
Beatrix lost her right ear but survived a dog attack as a lamb in Surrey six years ago
Sarah, one of the volunteers
Buff Orpington chicks at five days old
One of the Buff Orpington chicks, around two weeks old
Patricia watering
Tess with freshly harvested Chard leaves
Tanya & Tess in the potting shed
Bella, the farm cat, dozes in the warmth of a polytunnel
Holmes, the kune kune pig, emerges for spring
Photographs copyright © Rachel Ferriman
