About me
Bookshop

Get new posts by email.

About me

Redriff

While we’re on refreshed artworks in Rotherhithe—and there’s a sentence I never imagined writing—this pair of boats made by Kevin Boys was recently unveiled on the refurbished Redriff Footbridge, replacing a previous artwork that had been stolen.

I would never have come across this spot had I not serendipitously wandered into the Russia Dock Woodland on an ‘I wonder where that path goes?’ whim.

After the closure of the Surrey Commercial Docks in the 1970s, Russia Dock was filled in—except for a little trickle of a stream. The surrounding area was planted to create a little woodland. Forty-odd years after it was completed, it’s become a 34-acre haven of nature in a formerly industrial area.

The filled-in dock sits at a lower level than the surrounding pathways, with the capstones still visible. This provides a nice link to its industrial past, but it did strike me that safety considerations might have prevented that design approach if the woodland were created today.

I’ve previously written about the many country parks in North East England, which stand as the beautiful legacy of our mining past, and I suppose this is a sort of industrial dock equivalent.

This post was filed under: Photos, Travel, , , .

Deal porters

In the first half of the twentieth century, the area around Rotherhithe in London did a roaring trade in importing ‘deal’—large pieces of timber. In order to import it, it needed to be unloaded from incoming ships, and ‘deal porters’ were the answer to that problem.

Working in pairs, one worker would lift one end of a stack of deal, and their partner would stand at the deal’s mid-point and heave it up onto his shoulder. The worker would then walk, carrying this extraordinarily long and heavy deal, across a gangplank to the dock and into nearby warehouses. You could, I guess, say that this method was ‘the art of the deal’—and it was backbreaking work. There’s some archive footage on Youtube. Much of the wood was turned into paper to supply the nearby newspaper presses, while the rest was used in construction and furniture carpentry.

In 1990, Philip Bews and Diane Gorvin created a sculpture in steel and oak to sit among the greenery on the edge of Canada Dock commemorating this work. It was well-received, though as the trees and greenery grew around it, the sculpture became difficult to see during the more verdant seasons.

Last year, the sculpture was taken away for refurbishment. A few weeks ago, it returned to the newly redeveloped Canada Dock. The workers now look out over a vermillion bridge of thousands upon thousands of pieces of timber, as though their work will never be completed. I’m not sure whether I’m more depressed by that idea, or by seeing how the greenery which previously stretched higher than the seven metres of the statue now doesn’t even hide its base.

Still, I do rather like the sculpture, even if it’s a bit figurative for my usual taste.

This post was filed under: Photos, Travel, , , , .




The content of this site is copyright protected by a Creative Commons License, with some rights reserved. All trademarks, images and logos remain the property of their respective owners. The accuracy of information on this site is in no way guaranteed. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author. No responsibility can be accepted for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information provided by this site. Information about cookies and the handling of emails submitted for the 'new posts by email' service can be found in the privacy policy. This site uses affiliate links: if you buy something via a link on this site, I might get a small percentage in commission. Here's hoping.