Cubow

A request from Malta from the Government Inspector of Ships for information on Cubow shipyard - active on the earliest part of the Woolwich Dockyard site, now the site for tower blocks of flats. In Malta is a fishing boat called 'Golden Dawn' built by Cubow in 1975. Malta Maritime Authority would like to know more and will pay for research. They would also like to contact Downtown Marine who were later on the site.

late sept garden view

Another beautiful fall morning.....the garden is exploding with color, the morning glory vines are taking over, but I like it! I'm feeling inspired to get to work & create something new (for the garden; even if only for temporary, until it goes to a gallery...)


Gourds of unknown origin: growing along the fence: I had to make some holders, cuz they were getting so big!!
Tons of grapes this year; I'd like to try making wine; if I have time.... Skwishy Cat; on the garden shed step that the kids & I mosaic-ed one day...

Couldn't resist a snap of the rose with sparkling dew....



Sunflowers are so cheery; they just pop up everywhere; I feed the birds sunflower seeds...

I even planted some red ones just for fun!


The stream: how I love it so... forget-me-nots thrive in it; I have to tear them out every month or so: they back up all the water & overflow the creek! If anyone out there ever wants some; just let me know...


Steel pipe planter...

Feather: following me around & loudly demanding his morning pets, as usual :)

Table & Benches-A20 Fitness Project

Another busy day yesterday; meetings in Boise in the morning & then home to work on finishing up the benches & table all afternoon/evening. We were going to install tonight (Friday night) but just dont quite have the time to get everything finished up: I've still got to cut the bamboo & install it on the table, & make some adjustments to the bench height....and do some more clean up on the insulator planters too. All the little details that take awhile. Today, I should get all that wrapped up, & we can be loaded & ready to go for install on Saturday evening...
The bench tops turned out amazing!! I put a clear oil sealer over the wood & the color intensified amazingly! I love that the pieces are not quite the same shape, & not perfect either; the organic-ness is a nice contrast to the simple lines of the steel & concrete....
Table is almost done; just gots to add the bamboo; it will look stunning with the contrast, I think! More later; I've got to get to work!

A20 Fitness; Install part 1

Monday night, we loaded up the concrete panels & headed down the road to A20 Fitness for the first part of the install.... The panels looked so weird going down the road; we got lots of looks from passing cars!

Here we are in front of the building; still under construction, as you can see. Sounds like things will be wrapping up this week; they are hoping to open for biz Oct. 1st, with a grand opening celebration sometime mid October....



Two panels went out front; to screen the ugly fence & add some detail to the front entrance. We had planned on 3 panels, but it was just too crowded, so we went with 2, & 1 in the back patio area. Later this week, we will add 2 recycled ceramic insulators; one short & 1 tall; which will be planted with grasses & shrubbery. They'll add to the grouping nicely; they are a dark brown color....


Detail of recycled glass orbs; they really do sparkle in the sunlight & draw the eye; I'm really happy we went with a contrasting color!
The last 2 days, we've been working on the table & ceramic planters; hoping for an install this Friday. The table is the same concrete slab, with a steel & bamboo support structure. It will also have a planter, to be filled with planted & river pebbles. Yesterday, I purchased some amazing wood for the bench-tops: thick slabs of black walnut that came from a huge tree in Eagle. I've been promised pics of the actual tree, & will post soon.. ...

Views from the Garden...

My purple morning glories are pink now....weird. I wonder if it's from all the rain we just got...??? Hmmmm....


I had to make some little pumpkin benches for my vine that's growing along the fence...although, I don't really know if these are pumpkins or not...I got a variety seed pack from an organic see co. this spring; so far I have 1 white pumpkin, one orange, a bunch of little yellowish baby gourds, & these things that seem to be growing by the day.

This is the back patio; salvaged concrete stones & a big steel crusher cone for a fire pit...



The grapes are almost ripe; I think I have enough to try my hand a home made wine---if I can get to it between art projects, making new sculpture, & the City Hall proposal :)
I love fall....

Glass Orbs

Got the glass orbs mounted in the concrete: I'm hoping to possibly install this evening!!! I love the way the concrete came out & the contrast of the color of the glass :) It should be quite the adventure to get them all loaded onto the truck to head into downtown Boise...

Next will be the table & benches; this week; oh and the planters too; we are talking about using the shorter ones instead of the big tall ones; it almost seems like they would cover too much of the concrete; we'll see....

Meridian City Hall Tour

A couple weeks ago, I found out that I'm a finalist in the Meridian city Hall public art project....which means, I am 1 on the 3 artists who gets paid to make a proposal (due by Oct 17th) for a hanging sculptural installation for the entrance of the new City Hall; now under construction... If my proposal is chosen, I get to make & install it by next spring: the budget is big enough to get really creative....very exciting opportunity..

Last night, we got to tour the construction site, meet the mayor, the construction Mgr, etc.... The new city hall is going to be amazing! They are creating a park-like setting out front with water features, an amphitheater, walkways, & lots of nice landscaping. City Hall is a lovely brick & steel building with lots of windows, & the site for the artwork is in the 2 story entrance: a wall of glass that will be seen from the main road.... Lovey earthy colors throughout the building; nice & modern, but comfortable. The possibilities for this project are tremendous--although suspending a work of sculpture is going to have it's own challenges....

After seeing the space & talking about the vision for City Hall, I was inspired, although no concrete ideas have come to mind just yet....I'm going to spend the next couple days working on some other projects, & let things simmer.... I know that whatever I come up with has to have some good color, something that plays with the light & has some lighting in the design, and touches on the history of the area, but the overall design should be modern....

Hmmmmm, nothing is popping into by head yet.... Here's some pics of the tour...


Here I am all dressed up for the occasion...


And my competition: Mr. Francis Fox....I wonder if he has any ideas yet either???

The windows from inside; the art piece will be hanging here...
The view of the space from the 2nd story....
OK; off to work & idea simmering... it's a lovely rainy morning; I'm enjoying listing to the thunder: maybe the lighting will spark some inspiration!

color

Yay! Stained concrete yesterday; they turned out amazing!!! Each one a bit different in color & pattern... I'll put the sealer on today & it will be adding the glass next; cant wait!

Mills on the River Wandle

We’ve been sent a copy of another new guide to mill sites on the river Wandle - the major milling river which runs from the outskirts of Croydon to the Thames at Wandsworth. This is a quick 22 page outline of mill sites and mill uses. The first pages detail mill remains extant and in use, there is a description of how a water mill works and this is followed – helpfully and originally – by descriptions of mills of the past listed under the product they processed – corn, dyestuffs, calico printers, etc. The Wandle is a fascinating river and this is a helpful and interesting guide to its working past. Greenwich residents would find this a helpful guide to the river in a day out and they should also visit the excellent Wandle Industrial Museum. The booklet is by David Saxby and costs £2.95. It is available from the Wandle Industrial Museum, the Wheelhouse at Merton Abbey Mills or Sutton Heritage Centre, Honeywood Walk, Carshalton, SM5 3NX or from David Saxby, MOLAS, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, N1 7ED. It was commissioned and published by the Wandle Valley Festival

Mind out for the boundaries

GIHS regularly receives copies of The Local Historian published by the Journal of the British Association for Local History. As ever there is little about London and its industries, however an article in the August 2008 edition on parish boundary markers has caught my eye. The article mentions parish outings which used to take place to ‘beat the bounds’ and some of the antics mentioned reminded me of an article in an old Greenwich Antiquarians Transactions (Vol. IX No 4 1982) where there is a description of beating the Greenwich boundaries in 1844 - which includes, for the industrial bits of Greenwich, a description of the civic procession Vicar, churchwardens, local school kids etc etc – who started off down Church Street to Garden Stairs, thence through Brewhouse Lane, the Gallery, Wood Wharf (having a waterman passing up the centre of the river at the same time). Through Mr. Tuckwell’s premises, through Mr. Martyr’s yard, passing over planks to the river wall at the back of the Gasworks, thence on to the edge of the wharfing, over barges and planks into Mr. Burford’s premises. Thence through Mr.Walton’s to the centre of Creek Bridge where three cheers are given for the Queen and the parish of Greenwich. …….. then on across planks and boats to Deptford Bridge where the Hundredth psalm was sung. At the Waterworks a man swam the river to the marker post in Shepherd’s garden. Having continued through the Silk Mill.. . and so on. They stopped for lunch at The Sun in the Sands on Blackheath and after that entered the Countess of Buckingham’s brew house passing out of her laundry window into a large oak tree where the parish treasurer had the honour to be bumped against a stone – and so on right round the parish until they got back to the River at Lombard’s Wall at Charlton, where they continued by boat. The whole thing took eight hours.
Does anyone know of any parish markers in the Borough? Is this something we should be looking out for?

Changes at Gilbert's Pit

We have been sent a pre-copy of the Archaeological desktop study on Maryon Park in Charlton – and clearly this is with special reference to Gilbert’s pit. As ever with these things it’s all about archaeology not industrial archaeology – nevertheless past industry could hardly fail to get a mention here. Very early on the authors note ‘throughout history these sand and gravel deposits have been exploited. Some mineral deposits may have been quarried as early as the Roman period and after the establishment of Woolwich Dockyard in 1512 sand was used for ships ballast .. in the 18th century major digging began to obliterate the site … demand for moulding sand, glass sand ….. The lowermost layers of the Thanet sands, black-foot or strong loam, were excavated for brass casting moulds while above them beds of larger grained and less cohesive mild loam were used for iron castings. They note limekilns in Blackheath Hill and Charlton Church Lane. (Much of this quotes Paul Sowan and attributed him, wrongly, to GIHS rather than is actual base in Croydon.
The study moves on to sites of prehistoric occupation and notes signs of flint workings – maybe our earliest industry! Later evidence is found of iron and copper slag and baked clay as well as loom weights from Roman times.
The authors note a sand quarry in the area mentioned by Hasted in 1797 and sand pits and quarries shown on maps of the early 19th century. In the 1830s two lime burners are listed in 1839 at New Charlton. This document has been produced in conjunction with works planned here by the Council and we look forward to more detail on this.

Early iron working

More about Gilbert’s Pit and Maryon Park. A correspondent tells us that when walking the site recently he saw what is though to be a piece of primary iron slag protruding from the chalk face about 1 m below the top. This indicates a major iron works on the site which is possibly pre-Roman

Boat builder Harding

We have been asked for information about the boat builder Richard Henry Harding who was at work at Wood Wharf in the 1800s. It is known that Harding married into the Corbett family who had previously owned the yard, and took it over in due course

Lifting Concrete....

Last night, Kevin & I met at Mom & Dad's (aka my other workspace & storage yard) to mount the concrete slabs into the steel supports. This is a project for A20 Fitness; a new facility opening this month in downtown Boise. We are doing a sculptural installation in the front of the building to cover an old fence, & doing a matching table & benches for the back patio area. The concrete is reclaimed--the slabs would have gone to the landfill, if we hadn't taken them... So, they are being re-incarnated into artwork! There will be 3 panels in a grouping, with insulator planters as accents(another recycled treasure). The windows of each panel will have glass spheres mounted with cable, for some sparkle, & the concrete will be stained a mahogany color with a few green accents....

cant wait to color!
Tonight, we will drill into the concrete for permanent anchors to the steel, Dad will pressure wash them, & I'll start staining tomorrow---cant wait to do some experimenting with the color!

I'm really excited about this project---it's going to look amazing when done, & to be able to use so much recycled content is awesome :) I love the concrete slabs standing up--they almost become their own sculpture... Thanks goodness we have the old crane truck--I couldn't even think about doing projects like this without it!

Will post more progress pics tomorrow.

Yesterday's creations

Made these two yesterday, I like them both, the bearing stack-up is not exactly an original idea, but I still like it... The other one is made of the cutout scraps from the public art project from this spring; I think it turned out really nice...I'll get some better pics today.

Hmmmm, what am I going to do today??? I'm running pretty low on building materials right now, although I keep seeming to come up with different ideas.... The scrap yards have nothing right now: steel prices have dropped so much that no one is bringing anything in! Prices were soo good this summer, that the market got flooded with scrap steel, which caused the price to drop dramatically---everyone is expecting it to come back up withing a few months though. For now, I guess I'll just have to get more creative with what I've got, & expand my searching areas...

Tonight, we will be working on the project for A20 Fitness---we got the steel supports back yesterday, have to drill them tonight & take them into Mom's house (aka my other work zone & storage area) Hopefully we can put the concrete into them so I can get it stained next week.... More on that project later.....

The Pioneers

- and now - this wonderful picture from Barbara. Not sure its industrial history - but!! Barbara who are this daring young couple on their amazing machine! and is that Pelton Road.

(any help on enlarging this picture without distortion from a techie somewhere would be welcome)

hmmmm.....

ok, so it looks like something out of nightmare before christmas..... dont know about this one....

Where are these

More of Barbara's pictures - where are they of? what's the date?

Winner Winner, chicken dinner!

Just found out that I was the winner, by popular vote, of the Recycled Art Show last weekend. Thanks to everyone who voted!! The benifit apparently raised 5K; a huge success!!




And, this week it was announced that I'm a finalist for the Meridian City Hall project... I'll be among 3 artists who will do a proposal for a new atrium sculpture-for the brand new city hall. This one moves really fast; proposals due by Oct 17th, one will be picked from the 3, & then it will be installed by next spring. I'm really crossing my fingers; it will be a fun one to do; a hanging installation in a 3 story atrium in front of a wall of windows....more details on that later...got to get to work now :)

Siemens vehicle

Barabara from Charlton has sent the following picture. Any comments please??

Working Lives of the Thames Gateway

This project, based in east London and part of the Eastside project, has agreed to fill in the vacant slot for a meeting of the GIHS on 10th February. They are an oral history project covering the Thames Gateway and are recording interviews with workers in a wide range of industries. In Greenwich they have already built up an archive on Siemens, British Ropes and AMC Motorcycles working with our Heritage Centre
They are establishing the East London People's Archive preserved and archived for public benefit.

The project also has a special study day on 20th September to promote the project and discuss priorities. Info www.hidden-histories.org.uk michael@ech.org.uk

Views from the Garden

The view of my side garden; I water it only once a week (if I remember) & it just grows & grows...I thinking about ripping out my entire lawn in favor of this sort of thing. I've got all kinds of perenials, a cherry tree, & mixed in vegetables too....along with a few industrial elements :)
I love morning glories....I planted a few seeds a couple years ago, & they continue to pop up in the spring, & climb up fences, trelleses, etc. Love the purple ones; they're soooo purple; almost neon in the sun.... This year I have lots of purples, some of the huge sky blue ones, & a whole bunch of whites--dont know where they came from, but where I had pinks & purples last year, I got white & only white in one spot this
year....wierd.

New Piece

Finished this one up yesterday; it's a little over 6 feet tall...I like it. It was a fun one; just putting steel in place & welding; no planning...

Latest Windchime....

Trouble with Butane

The Historic Gas Times comes out four times a year and always features something about the great (and recently much maligned EAST GREENWICH GASWORKS. The current issue features an article by Tony Coles on his work in the 1960s as an Engineering Assistant there. The article describes pressure storage of butane on site and about preparation for its delivery by rail from Grain refinery and includes some 'amusing' episodes which required emergency action!. Enquiries about Historic Gas Times to Bob Winn, 91 Caroline Terrace, Edinburgh, EH12 8QX

Greenwich Historical Society

The GHS has asked us to publicise their next meeting on 24th September - the history of Greenwich Yacht Club. (Blackheath High School, Vanburgh Park, 7.30)
At the same time they point out that 24th September is the anniversary of the launch of Prince at Woolwich in 1610. The ship, of 1,400 tons, was built by Phineas Pett and given by James I to Henry Prince of Wales (who of course had close connections with Charlton House).
They also note the launch at Woolwich on Victory in 1631, Royal James in 1663, and Sovereign of the Seas in 1637.
The other anniversary they note for 24th September is when Bob Hope unveiled the plaque for the opening of the Eltham Little Theatre - now the Bob Hope Theatre - in 1982.

Severndroog

Help Save Severndroog Castle. Flyer from the Severndroog Castle Building Preservation Trust - check out www.severndroog.org.uk for details about this Greenwich folly and what is currently going on with the campaign to restore and reopen it.
The trust is applying for money from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is looking for local supporters to tell the Fund how much they value the Castle and the Trust.
If you want to see the Castle it will be open on 20-21st September as part of the London Open House weekend between 10.00 and 3.00. Check out openhouse.org.uk.
It is also on the Green Chain Walk and will feature in some of the celebrations around the Walking Festival in mid-September.

Royal Hill

Query from a resident:

Does anyone in your society know the original purpose of the building nowoccupied by the Greenwich Natural Health Centre at the back of 70 RoyalHill? It is a most curious structure hidden away behind Royal Hill andabutting the allotments on what used to be the other railway line coming into Greenwich.

Recycled Art Show

My entry for the Recycled Art show.... 6 feet tall, has a base of a ceramic insulator, it spins, & the keys jingle. Love the copper.... Cant wait to see what everybody thinks!!! I know it's a bit bizarre, but hey, I like it.