Old St Pancras Churchyard was once described as the “Dead Centre” of London, for it held the graves of many thousands of Londoners. It has the Sir John Soane mausoleum, the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, and a sundial memorial to Dame Burdett-Coutts a Victorian philanthropist. It […]
We are delighted to announce the shortlist of writers whose poetry and prose appears in this year’s Urban Tree Festival edition of CANOPY which is published today! Earlier this year we ran a competition in which we asked people to submit a poem or a story of 250 words or under on the theme of […]
We have started this week with a spring in our step, not least because of a fantastic full house for our seasonal opener with Paul Wood exploring the urban forest in Herne Hill where the cherry-tree lined streets were such a draw. Former Southwark Councillor, Robin Crookshank-Hilton, who was pivotal in getting Winterbrook Road lined […]
This week we have issued an Open Call for new walking pieces to be included in Sound Walk Sunday which this year will take place on Sunday 1st September and during the week following. Hand-held digital technologies are ubiquitous and add another dimension for the creative to work in developing enhanced walking experiences. We believe […]
Andrew Stuck, founder of the Museum of Walking writes “When I was a child, I was told to remember the 3 Rs: reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. I never understood why you needed to remember, or to remember them in this ungrammatical way. These days, as we mangle the English language to fit a Tweet, text […]
400 years ago that little bit of London called St James‘ was an orchard – King James I brought mulberry trees (and other fruiters) from the Languedoc regions in France, creating a demonstration orchard, with which he hoped to encourage the ‘landed gentry’ to create their own mulberry orchards. There are plenty of myths surrounding […]
As we try to unravel fact from fiction, whether it is the novels she wrote or her autobiography, Dame Muriel Spark led us on an obscure trail in Kensington. Once well established as a literary author, in the 1980s she wrote two novels, on reflection set in Kensington in the 1950s: “A Far Cry from […]
Transfer of assets to the community is an expression we have encountered a few times this past week – sounds fairly inconsequential until you begin to unravel what this might mean, and who within the community will be the beneficiaries. We listened to Bob Gilbert, author of “Ghost Trees” and former Islington Borough Parks officer […]
On Monday Andrew Stuck, Museum founder and Producer of Talking Walking, went to a talk by Satish Kumar at Alternatives, in Piccadilly, London. Now in his 80s, smiling and looking as young as ever, he spoke eloquently, about how peace is a way of life not just an opposite of war. Explaining that he was inspired […]
Autumn colours have been all around these last two weeks, and what has surprised us is that so many of the scenes that have caught our eye have been in London. We have been out about on the streets of Muswell Hill, walking with Paul Wood, author of “London’s Street Trees“. As a finale for […]
