Taylor’s Buttons & Belts Is Saved!
Portrait of Maureen Rose by Sarah Ainslie
Thanks in no small part to the generosity of you – the readers of Spitalfields Life – Taylors Buttons & Belts is saved. On Friday, I published my post about the crowdfund to raise £17,000 and by Saturday afternoon the total was achieved with 697 contributors.
Maureen Rose has been making buttons at her hundred year old shop in Cleveland St Fitzrovia for over fifty years and this outcome reflects the love and esteem that people have for Maureen and her wonderful emporium of buttons.
£17,000 is the rent arrears Maureen owes her landlord for the Covid lockdowns and unless she could pay this by November 14th, they were refusing to renew her lease. Thankfully this problem is now solved and the beloved institution may continue.
This has been a magnificent example of team work. Maureen’s friend Antonia Brecht contacted me last week about the crowdfund which had been running for two weeks and stood at around £400. Once I ran my story on Friday it took off, thanks particularly to the community of dressmakers, designers and costumers who all rallied round to support Maureen. Good job everybody!
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
Visit Taylor’s Buttons & Belts, 22 Cleveland St, Fitzrovia, W1T 4JB
Open Tuesdays and Wednesdays 11am- 3:30pm
You make like to read my original story
Bloomsbury Jamboree Lectures 2025
You are invited to our annual BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE which runs from 10:30am – 4:30pm, Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th November at Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Sq, WC1N 3AT.
We are showing the work of our favourite makers and are proud to present these accompanying lectures. Tickets include entry to the Jamboree.
Photograph by Alun Callender
THE ART OF COLLABORATION: TWENTY YEARS OF ST JUDE’S
Join St Jude’s co-founders Simon and Angie Lewin in conversation with long-time collaborator and printmaker Christopher Brown. They will discuss the meeting points of fine art and commercial design, the creative partnerships that shape their work, and the lasting influence of artist-designers Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious.
Click here to book for St Jude’s lecture at 7pm on Friday 14th November
Photograph by Anthony Crolla
SMALL TALK
Ros Byam Shaw, author of the acclaimed Perfect English series and writer for House & Garden, Cabana and The World of Interiors, introduces her new book, Perfect English Small and Beautiful.
In this illustrated talk, Ros shows that Perfect English style can be scaled down to work in a home of any age, size or shape. She visits twelve pint-sized homes that are perfect examples of this ever-popular look, including a terraced townhouse in Ludlow, a gardener’s cottage in Kent, a tiny London flat and a perfect Cotswolds country cottage.
At a time when sustainability and environmental concerns are at the top of the agenda, Perfect English style prioritises reuse, recycling and upcycling, and happily accommodates objects that are worn, faded, and mended.
After her lecture, Ros will be signing copies of Perfect English Small and Beautiful published by Ryland Peters & Small.
Click here to book for Ros Byam Shaw’s lecture at 11am on Saturday 15th November
Photograph by Lucinda Douglas Menzies
TESSA HUNKIN’S HACKNEY MOSAIC PROJECT
Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project has been responsible for some of the most witty and imaginative mosaics of recent years.
In a bold reinvention of the classical tradition, Tessa has assembled a passionate and diverse team of makers, creating beautiful mosaics that have become cherished landmarks, celebrating community and elevating the streets of East London.
In this illustrated lecture, Tessa tells the story of Hackney Mosaic Project and shows some of the mosaics, ranging from modest pieces in private gardens to expansive murals and pavements in public parks. From its beginnings as a temporary Olympic Celebration in 2012 to its development into a unique community craft workshop Tessa will also explain how the work is created and the development of the ideas behind it.
After her lecture Tessa will be signing copies of Hackney Mosaic Project published by Spitalfields Life Books.
Click here to book for Tessa Hunkin’s lecture at 12:15pm on Saturday 15th November
Photograph by Ola O. Smit
FORGOTTEN CRAFTS & CUSTOMS IN POLISH FOLK ART
Inspired by Polish folk art, Karolina Merska of Folka started creating pająki chandeliers in London in 2015.
Pająki (pah-yonk-ee) are chandeliers constructed of rye straw and paper with a history dating back to the mid-18th century, made by country women as decorations for their homes at festivals.
Karolina keeps the pająki tradition alive using traditional techniques and materials as well as experimenting with new ones to give her work contemporary look, and she is the author of Making Mobiles: Create Beautiful Polish Pająki from Natural Materials.
Join Karolina’s talk to discover the richness of Polish folk art. As well as introducing her practice of making pająki, she will present the work of her folk artist collaborators, share memorable moments from her travels in search of Polish folk and reveal her favourite Christmas Polish customs and traditions.
Click here to book for Karolina Merska’s lecture at 2pm on Saturday 15th November
Design by Beth Izatt
RISOGRAPH: PLAY, PRINT & POSSIBILITY
The Risograph, a machine with endless possibilities and a vibrant ink palette is a staple in the contemporary visual arts scene – but how has it impacted play, print and process? In this talk, Beth Izatt explores this machine’s rich history and how it revolutionised print, paving a way for fast and economical printing, whilst ushering in a much-celebrated DIY movement. We discuss how its various settings and colour blend options have sparked a wave of play in a variety of processes – and why this is important now more than ever.
This talk will feature Beth Izatt’s book Hello! Riso! With this helpful introduction to the world of Risograph, and our exploration into its impact, you will learn how you can utilise the magic of Riso.
After her talk Beth Izatt will be signing copies of Hello! Riso! published by Design For Today.
Click here to book for Beth Izatt’s lecture at 3:15pm on Saturday 15th November
MEET MR RAVILIOUS
Alan Powers explores the work of Eric Ravilious in the words of his friends and contemporaries .
How many people knew of his work in his lifetime, and what did they think of it? The answer to the first question is unknowable in terms of numbers, but he did not get major publicity. Even so, what was written about him, often by friends, is revealing. After his early death, writers often saw him as an influence for the future, representing a stream within English art and design that arguably only emerged into the light in recent years.
After his lecture Alan Powers will be signing copies of Eric Ravilious in the Eyes of his Contemporaries published by Mainstone Press.
Click here to book for Alan Powers’ lecture at 11am on Sunday 16th November
ASSEMBLE: PEOPLE, PLACES & COMMUNITIES
A talk by James Binning – founding member of the inspirational, Turner-prize winning, architectural collective Assemble.
Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, while retaining a democratic and cooperative working method that enables built, social and research-based work at a variety of scales, both making things and making things happen.
James’ talk will focus on Assemble’s early work and how they produced innovative projects that were resourceful and responsive to the challenges they saw as young people and practitioners in London and around the UK.
In 2025 James set up Common Treasures, a new organisation focussing on the role for design to address challenges facing rural places, economies and communities. He is working with the Ecological Land Co-operative, an organisation that aims to build a living working countryside in ways that are equitable and ecological, through democratising access to land and supporting the development of better networks of local, regenerative food and material production, and developing low cost and low impact housing for land workers.
Copies of both Assemble’s recent book, Building Collective published by Thames & Hudson, and Volumes 1 & 2 of Common Treasures, which focus on issues including food, farming, land, housing, planning and construction will available on the day.
Click here to book for James Binnings’ lecture at 12:15pm on Sunday 16th November
I SAW AN ART FAIR & TEN YEARS OF DUNG BEETLE BOOKS
We welcome artist, broadcaster and writer Miriam Elia for a talk, a book signing and more than a few laughs. It is the tenth anniversary of Miriam’s Dung Beetle Books which have sold an amazing 250,000 copies.
It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey and Miriam will be reflecting on when she was sued by Penguin, and the time Marina Abramovic personally asked her to write a surrealist comedy about her. Then too, how she became an artist and what makes her laugh.
After her talk, Miriam will be signing copies of her latest title I Saw An Art Fair, a micky-take of art fairs and modern art in general, seen through the lens of a fifties ‘tick the box’ children’s book.
Click here to book for Miriam Elia’s lecture at 2pm on Sunday 16th November
Design by Louise Lockhart
MY PROCESS IN PAPER, PRINT & PACKAGING
Louise Lockhart is an illustrator living on a farm in rural Wales. She spends her days creating designs from paper cut outs and line drawings, observing things that others may overlook.
She has turned her pen to non-fiction children’s books as well as working on illustrations for packaging from Easter eggs for M&S to pyjamas for Mini Boden.
Inspired by mid-century printmakers and retro colour palettes, her playful work often bridges the gap between graphics, fine art, illustration and textiles. As well as working as a freelance illustrator, Louise also applies her pictures to products which she sells in her online shop The Printed Peanut.
This talk showcases Louise’s influences and inspiration from early life to documenting her working methods. She will discuss how she likes to cut out shapes from paper to make different types of print, focusing on analogue and handmade techniques.
“[Louise Lockhart’s] work is reminiscent of Eric Ravilious, but through a joyful sixties Technicolor telescope,” Bibelot Magazine
Click here to book for Louise Lockhart’s lecture at 3:15pm on Sunday 16th November
Bloomsbury Jamboree 2025
In gleeful collaboration with Tim Mainstone of Mainstone Press and Joe Pearson of Design for Today, I am hosting our annual BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE, a festival of books and print, illustration, talks and seasonal merriment on SATURDAY 15th & SUNDAY 16th NOVEMBER from 10:30am until 4:30pm.
It takes place at the magnificent ART WORKERS GUILD, 6 Queens Sq, WC1, which was founded in 1884 by members of the Arts & Crafts movement including William Morris and C R Ashbee. These oak panelled rooms lined with oil paintings in a beautiful old house in Bloomsbury offer the ideal venue to celebrate our books, and the authors and artists who create them.
There will be a programme of ticketed lectures and readings plus we have invited our talented friends to exhibit, including print and paper makers, small press publishers, toy makers, potters, craft workers and importers for food by small producers. We present a selection of the work of some of our exhibitors below.
We need volunteers all day Saturday and Sunday. We offer bags of books and other goodies as rewards – if you can help us, please email hello@inkpaperandprint.co.uk
Poster by Marion Elliot
Jug by Richard Fuest
Map of The Rolling Stones’ London by Herb Lester Associates
Rocketman by Jonny Hannah
Riso print by Louise Lockhart AKA The Printed Peanut
Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project published by Spitalfields Life
St Michael’s Mount Harbour, Dave the Cat print by Matt Johnson
Print by Chris Brown
Portrait Of Dorset published by Design For Today
Delft tiles by Matilda Moreton
Eric Ravilious lifeboat print published by Mainstone Press
Tea towel by Marion Elliot
Journal Of A Man Unknown by Gillian Tindall published by Spitalfields Life
Meet the Typographer by Gaby Bazin published by Design For Today
Fungi Alphabet print by Rachel Snowden
Collages by Clover Robin
Hedgehog taking a coffee break, print by Chris Brown
Printed wooden decorations Elizabeth Harbour
Sal Cargo bringing produce from small producers across the world to London by sail power
Tea towel by Marion Elliot
Print by Mark Hearld published by Penfold Press
Helford River Egrets print by Matt Johnson
Solar powered house made of boxes from Whitechapel Market by Robson Cezar
Wrapping paper to designs by Eric Ravilious and Enid Marx produced by Judd St Papers
Ceramic bowls by Matilda Moreton
Collage by Clover Robin
Cards by Kiran Ravilious
Eric Ravilous Through the Eyes of his Contemporaries published by Mainstone Press
Paper mache figures by Emily Warren AKA Stealthyrabbit
Linocut calendar by Rachel Snowden
Polish folk art chandeliers by Folka
Shortest Day print by Clare Curtis published by Penfold Press
Paper mache animal masks by Emily Warren AKA Stealthyrabbit
Polish handmade toys from Frank & Luisa
Ceramic bowls by Richard Fuest
Save Taylor’s Buttons & Belts
Taylor’s Buttons & Belts will close forever in November unless Maureen Rose can raise enough to pay off her rent arrears from the Covid lockdowns. Please click here to support Maureen’s crowdfund
‘Every button tells a story’
On the ground floor of the house where Charles Dickens grew up at 22 Cleveland St in Fitzrovia is a wonderful button shop that might easily be found within the pages of a Dickens novel. Boxes of buttons line the walls from floor to ceiling, some more than a hundred years old, and at the centre sits Maureen Rose, presiding regally over her charges like the queen of the buttons.
“A very nice gentleman – well turned out – stood in my doorway and asked, ‘Charles Dickens doesn’t live here anymore, does he?'” Maureen admitted to me with a sly grin. “I said, ‘No, he doesn’t.’ And he said, ‘Would you have his forwarding address?’ So I said, ‘No, but should I get it, I’ll put a note in the window.'”
Taylor’s Buttons & Belts is the only independent button shop in the West End, where proprietor Maureen sits making buttons every day. It is a cabinet of wonders where buttons and haberdashery of a century ago may still be found. “These came with the shop,” explained Maureen proudly, displaying a handful of Edwardian oyster and sky blue crochetted silk buttons.
“Every button tells a story,” she informed me, casting her eyes affectionately around her exquisite trove. “I have no idea how many there are!” she declared, rolling her eyes dramatically and anticipating my next question. “I like those Italian buttons with cherries on them, they are my favourites,” she added as I stood speechless in wonder.
“Let me show you how it works,” she continued, swiftly cutting circles of satin, placing them in her button-making press with nimble fingers, adding tiny metal discs and then pressing the handle to compress the pieces, before lifting a perfect satin covered button with an expert flourish.
It was a great delight to sit at Maureen’s side as she worked, producing an apparently endless flow of beautiful cloth-covered buttons. Customers came and went, passers-by stopped in their tracks to peer in amazement through the open door, and Maureen told me her story.
“My late husband, Leon Rose, first involved me in this business. He bought it from the original Mr Taylor when it was in Brewer St. The business is over a hundred years old with only two owners in that time. It was founded by the original Mr Taylor and then there was Mr Taylor’s son, who retired in his late eighties when he sold it to my husband.
My husband was already in the button business, he started his career in a button factory learning how to make buttons. His uncle had a factory in Birmingham – it was an old family business – and he got in touch with Leon to say, ‘There’s a gentleman in town who is retiring and you should think about taking over his business.’
Leon inherited an elderly employee who did not like the fact that the business had been sold. She had been sitting making buttons for quite some time and she said she would like to retire. So at first my mother went in to help, when he needed someone for a couple of hours a day, and then – of course – there was me!
I was a war baby and my mother had a millinery business in Fulham. She was from Cannon St in Whitechapel and she opened her business at nineteen years old. She got married when she was twenty-one and she ran her business all through the war. As a child, I used to sit in the corner and watch her make hats. She used to say very regularly to me, ‘Watch me Maureen, otherwise one day you’ll be sorry.’ But I did not take up millinery. I did not have an interest in it and I regret that now. She was very talented and she could have taught me. She had done an apprenticeship and she knew how to make hats from scratch. She made all her own buckram shapes.
I helped her for while, I did a lot of buying for her from West End suppliers in Great Marlborough St where there were a lot of millinery wholesalers. It was huge then but today I do not think there is anything left. There was big fashion industry in the West End and it has all gone. It was beautiful. We used to deal with lovely couture houses like Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell. I used to go to see their collections, it was glamorous.
I only make buttons to order, you send me the fabric – velvet, leather or whatever – and I will make you whatever you want. We used to do only small orders for tailors for suits, two fronts and eight cuff buttons. Nowadays I do them by the hundred. I do not think Leon ever believed that was possible.
Anybody can walk into my shop and order buttons. I also make buttons for theatre, television, film and fashion houses. I do a lot of bridal work. I am the only independent button shop in the West End. I get gentleman who buy expensive suits that come with cheap buttons and they arrive here to buy proper horn buttons to replace them.
My friends ask me why I have not retired, but I enjoy it. What would I do at home? I have seen what happens to my friends who have retired. They lose the plot. I meet nice people and it is interesting. I will keep going as long as I can and I would like my son Mark to take it over. He is in IT but this is much more interesting. People only come to me to buy buttons for something nice, although I rarely get to see the whole garment.
I had a customer who was getting married and she loved Pooh bear. She wanted buttons with Pooh on them. She embroidered them herself with a beaded nose for the bear and sent the material to me. I made the buttons, which were going down the back of the dress. I said, ‘Please send me a picture of your wedding dress when it is finished.’ She sent me a picture of the front. So I never saw Pooh bear.
A lady stood in the doorway recently and asked me, ‘Do you sell the buttons?’ I replied, ‘No, it’s a museum.’ She walked away, I think she believed me.”
‘Presiding regally over her charges like the queen of the buttons’
Cutting a disc of satin
Placing it in the mould
Putting the mould into the press
Edwardian crochetted silk buttons
“I like those Italian buttons with cherries on them, they are my favourites”
Dickens’ card while resident, when Cleveland St was known as Norfolk St (reproduced courtesy of Dan Calinescu)
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Upon The Nature Of Terror
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I believe I was born with a medieval imagination. It is the only way I can explain the explicit gothic terrors of my childhood. Even lying in my cradle, I recall observing the monstrous face that emerged from the ceiling lampshade once the light was turned out. This all-seeing creature, peering at me from above, grew more pervasive as years passed, occupying the shadows at the edges of my vision and assuming more concrete manifestations. An unexpected sound in my dark room revealed its presence, causing me to lie still and hold my breath, as if through my petrified silence I could avert the attention of the devil leaning over my bedside.
When I first became aware of gargoyles carved upon churches and illustrated in manuscripts, I recognised these creatures from my own imagination and I made my own paintings of these scaled, clawed, horned, winged beasts, which were as familiar as animals in the natural world. I interpreted any indeterminate sound or movement from the dark as indicating their physical presence in my temporal existence. Consequently, darkness, shadow and gloom were an inescapable source of fear to me on account of the nameless threat they harboured, always lurking there just waiting to pounce. At this time of year, when the dusk glimmers earlier in the day, their power grew as if these creatures of the shades might overrun the earth.
Nothing could have persuaded me to walk into a dark house alone. One teenage summer, I looked after an old cottage while the residents were on their holiday and, returning after work at night, I had to walk a long road that led through a deep wood without street lighting. As I wheeled my bicycle up the steep hill among the trees in dread, it seemed to me they were alive with monsters and any movement of the branches confirmed their teeming presence.
Yet I discovered a love of ghost stories and collected anthologies of tales of the supernatural, which I accepted as real because they extended and explained the uncanny notions of my own imagination. In an attempt to normalise my fears, I made a study of mythical beasts and learnt to distinguish between a griffin and a wyvern. When I discovered the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Breughel, I grew fascinated and strangely reassured that they had seen the apocalyptic visions which haunted the recesses of my own mind.
I made the mistake of going to see Ridley Scott’s The Alien alone and experienced ninety minutes transfixed with terror, unable to move, because – unlike the characters in the drama – I was already familiar with this beast who had been pursuing me my whole life. In retrospect, I recognise the equivocal nature of this experience, because I also sought a screening of The Exorcist with similar results. Perhaps I sought consolation in having my worst fears realised, even if I regretted it too?
Once, walking through a side street at night, I peered into the window of an empty printshop and leapt six feet back when a dark figure rose up from among the machines to confront my face in the glass. My companions found this reaction to my own shadow highly amusing and it was a troubling reminder of the degree to which I was at the mercy of these irrational fears even as an adult.
I woke in the night sometimes, shaking with fear and convinced there were venomous snakes in the foot of my bed. The only solution was to unmake the bed and remake it again before I could climb back in. Imagine my surprise when I visited the aquarium in Berlin and decided to explore the upper floor where I was confronted with glass cases of live tropical snakes. Even as I sprinted away down the street, I felt the need to keep a distance from cars in case a serpent might be lurking underneath. This particular terror reached its nadir when I was walking in the Pyrenees, and stood to bathe beneath a waterfall and cool myself on a hot day. A green snake of several feet in length fell wriggling from above, hit me, bounced off into the pool and swam away, leaving me frozen in shock.
Somewhere all these fears dissolved. I do not know where or when exactly. I no longer read ghost stories or watch horror films and equally I do not seek out dark places or reptile houses. None of these things have purchase upon my psyche or even hold any interest anymore. Those scaly beasts have retreated from the world. For me, the shadows are not inhabited by the spectral and the unfathomable darkness is empty.
Bereavement entered my life and it dispelled these fears which haunted me for so long. My mother and father who used to turn out the light and leave me to sleep in my childhood room at the mercy of medieval phantasms are gone, and I have to live in the knowledge that they can no longer protect me. Once I witnessed the moment of death with my own eyes, it held no mystery for me. The demons became redundant and fled. Now they have lost their power over me, I miss them – or rather, perhaps, I miss the person I used to be – yet I am happy to live a life without supernatural agency.
Fourteenth century carvings from St Katherine’s Chapel, Limehouse
The Dance Of Death
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More than twenty years have passed since my father died at this time of year and thoughts of mortality always enter my mind as the nights begin to draw in, as I prepare to face the spiritual challenge of another long dark winter ahead. So Luke Clennell’s splendid DANCE OF DEATH engravings inspired by Hans Holbein suit my mordant sensibility at this season.
First published in 1825 as the work of ‘Mr Bewick’, they have recently been identified for me as the work of Thomas Bewick’s apprentice Luke Clennell by historian Dr Ruth Richardson.
The Desolation
The Queen
The Pope
The Cardinal
The Elector
The Canon
The Canoness
The Priest
The Mendicant Friar
The Councillor or Magistrate
The Astrologer
The Physician
The Merchant
The Wreck
The Swiss Soldier
The Charioteer or Waggoner
The Porter
The Fool
The Miser
The Gamesters
The Drunkards
The Beggar
The Thief
The Newly Married Pair
The Husband
The Wife
The Child
The Old Man
The Old Woman
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The Dead Man In Clerkenwell
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This is the face of the dead man in Clerkenwell. He does not look perturbed by the change in the weather. Once winters wore him out, but now he rests beneath the streets of the modern city he will never see, oblivious both to the weather and the wonders of our age, entirely oblivious to everything in fact.
Let me admit, although some might consider it poor company, I consider death to be my friend – because without mortality our time upon this earth would be worthless. So I do not fear death, but rather I hope I shall have enough life first. My fear is that death might come too soon or unexpectedly in some pernicious form. In this respect, I envy my father who always took a nap on the sofa each Sunday after gardening and one day at the age of seventy nine – when he had completed trimming the privet hedge – he never woke up again.
It was many years ago that I first made the acquaintance of the dead man in Clerkenwell, when I had an office in the Close where I used to go each day and write. I was fascinated to discover a twelfth century crypt in the heart of London, the oldest remnant of the medieval priory of the Knights of St John that once stood in Clerkenwell until it was destroyed by Henry VIII, and it was this memento mori, a sixteenth century stone figure of an emaciated corpse, which embodied the spirit of the place for me.
Thanks to the curator at the Museum of the Order of St John, I went back to look up my old friend after all these years. They lent me their key and, leaving the bright October sunshine behind me, I let myself into the crypt, switching on the lights and walking to the furthest underground recess of the building where the dead man was waiting. I walked up to the tomb where he lay and cast my eyes upon him, recumbent with his shroud gathered across his groin to protect a modesty that was no longer required. He did not remonstrate with me for letting twenty years go by. He did not even look surprised. He did not appear to recognise me at all. Yet he looked different than before, because I had changed, and it was the transformative events of the intervening years that had awakened my curiosity to return.
There is a veracity in this sculpture which I could not recognise upon my previous visit, when – in my innocence – I had never seen a dead person. Standing over the figure this time, as if at a bedside, I observed the distended limbs, the sunken eyes and the tilt of the head that are distinctive to the dead. When my mother lost her mental and then her physical faculties too, I continued to feed her until she could no longer even swallow liquid, becoming as emaciated as the stone figure before me. It was at dusk on the 31st December that I came into her room and discovered her inanimate, recognising that through some inexplicable prescience the life had gone from her at the ending of the year. I understood the literal meaning of “remains,” because everything distinctive of the living person had departed to leave mere skin and bone. And I know now that the sculptor who made this effigy had seen that too, because his observation of the dead is apparent in his work, even if the bizarre number of ribs in his figure bears no relation to human anatomy.
There is a polished area on the brow, upon which I instinctively placed my hand, where my predecessors over the past five centuries had worn it smooth. This gesture, which you make as if to check his temperature, is an unconscious blessing in recognition of the commonality we share with the dead who have gone before us and whose ranks we shall all join eventually. The paradox of this sculpture is that because it is a man-made artifact it has emotional presence, whereas the actual dead have only absence. It is the tender details – the hair carefully pulled back behind the ears, and the protective arms with their workmanlike repairs – that endear me to this soulful relic.
Time has not been kind to this figure, which originally lay upon the elaborate tomb of Sir William Weston inside the old church of St James Clerkenwell, until the edifice was demolished and the current church was built in the eighteenth century, when the effigy was resigned to this crypt like an old pram slung in the cellar. Today a modern facade reveals no hint of what lies below ground. Sir William Weston, the last Prior, died in April 1540 on the day that Henry VIII issued the instruction to dissolve the Order, and the nature of his death was unrecorded. Thus, my friend the dead man is loss incarnate – the damaged relic of the tomb of the last Prior of the monastery destroyed five hundred years ago – yet he still has his human dignity and he speaks to me.
Walking back from Clerkenwell, through the City to Spitalfields on this bright afternoon in late October, I recognised a similar instinct as I did after my mother’s death. I cooked myself a meal because I craved the familiar task and the event of the day renewed my desire to live more life.
The Museum of the Order of St John, St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, EC1M 4DA
