The Banana Line

Thursday, 9 August 2012

Bells

More than a year ago, I used to have my CAD classes in Commercial Road. We used to travel from Holloway road after the other modules through Kings Cross, waiting patiently for Hammersmith & City, endlessly, until our arrival to Aldgate East. Then we discovered that actually, the new Overground lines opened in February 2011 could easily take us to Whitechapel, involving the same amount of walk that would normally take us from Aldgate.

This new route from Whitechapel Road discovered me a new area of East London: another perspective of Brick Lane, Whitechapel Market, Royal London Hospital, Mulberry St (always reminded me of the bags) and Plumbers Rd. I also ended up discovering Petticoat Lane Market one day getting lost.

But it was while transferring from Whitechapel Road to Commercial, in that Plumbers Rd corner, there was this brown wooden Front Shop announcing 'Church Bell Foundry', and at the back, sometimes the big industrial garage door open that let me sneak peak the activity inside.

And I was able to see what I suspected: part of the foundry and the freshly made church bells. I remember how every time I had to come to my classes, I would cross the road, closer and closer to the foundry, trying to get a better glimpse of the activity.

As I usually do, by the time my interest on it grew to high level, I google-ed the foundry to know more about it and exploring the possibility of getting inside; to my dismay, the very few tours around available were fully booked even a year in advance, so I resigned myself to sneak over the fence every now and then.

Summer 2012. More than a year after and with my Masters finished, and again, through a discrete tweet by The Gentle Author (I just find amusing how many cool things I am managing to find lately via Twitter), lead me to find out that their doors were opening.

Funnily enough, the reason for this exception is a pure coincidence between logistics and chance. Turns out, due to the Olympics, trade in and out of London, specially the one involving big heavy trucks was predicted to be affected by the road closures, plus the normal expected disruptions from the Games and half of the country going away from holiday. Such amount of inconvenience lead to the board of the Foundry to decide to stop the manufacture for a couple of weeks and use up that time for exceptionally open its doors for the public during the time.

Obviously, I went to see it. First thing in the morning.

The views from the main office.

Archives...

According to the tour lady, Big Ben, Liberty Bell and the Olympic Bell were designed and manufactured on the site (actually the Olympic bell had to be manufactured elsewhere, as they don't have enough melting capacity, so it was secretly transported). Mega!

As soon as the lovely tour lady told us about the Liberty bell from Philadelphia having being made at that site, I couldn't help but visualising the episode from How I met your mother in which the talk about licking the Liberty Bell. Yum... lovely taste of metal...

And the courtyard, between the main office and the factory.

Although the Foundry was founded in 1570, it was originally based in Aldgate and subsequently moved to its current location around 1600 if I remember correctly.

As the space was limited and the business was growing, eventually they had to grow towards the inside of the property, turning it into a very quirky and lovely courtyard.

The office building was actually and add-on.

A Burmese bell from around 1200 that came to the foundry to be recycled into a new bell but kept it. It was beautiful.

Bells

Now inside the workshop...

Benches for preparing the bricks

Tea cabinet. Essential

Buckets

Just like the Three Wise Men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh, the bell makers need horse's hair, manure, clay, sand and water: the recipe for the mould. And just like making bread, they chuck the mix into an industrial mixer to come up with the doug for the bricks. The doug is called Loam.

For those geeks into metallurgy or just curious about bell manufacturing, HERE, a very clear explanation of how the process works.

Clay is a ceramic material. Porous and therefore refractary. Resistant to high temperature, allows and even and relatively slow cooling down of the molten metal. The manure probably provides with the bonding of all the substances involved.

Hairy bits. I imagine the hair acts assuring the structural integrity of the mix. Just like carbon fibre on the epoxy matrix in composite materials (here trying to apply my field to the matter).

Good old fuses

Different bases for different sizes of bell

And the form is filled with the bricks and the paste that will hold the molten metal when poured and provide the shape. The wholes allow the black paste to be relieved with the pressure. The central jig, called Strickle gives the internal shape.

An internal former, made of the same mix is needed. When given the shape, the mud is painted with graphite, to ease the remoulding.

Lumps of loam

In the process

Cooling down

The rebel alliance stronghold guardians of the...

The manager of the foundry cracking on...

Bolts, washers and nuts. I've seen a lot of those lately.

G-clamps: always handy

The workshop

Big Ben strickle on the left. Olympic Bell on the right

Tuning area

Massive drill. I bet I would not only not be able to drill anything with it but also, I would not be able to lift it at all...

Tongues or clappers to make the bell sound

Sand mould for the hand bells. Different process and different shape.

Clock in, clock out

What a lovely place and lovely staff. I am so glad that I managed to come. One off definitely, as there are no more bookings available until next year...

By the time I finished the tour it was poring.

But I had to run away to meet my friend K, waiting for me in Hackney Wick to go for a lovely walk. But as you know, that WAS another story.

Monday, 6 August 2012

The Wick

On Friday, we all woke up with the news that the London Pleasure Gardens had gone into administration, most probably caused by the big fiasco after cancelling Bloc for yet unclarified reasons (major Health and Safety issues). Shame, because I attended the premature opening the last day of June and I had a blast (most probably because it was the first sunny day of the summer up to that date. In my opinion, the place had potential, and therefore, I decided to design my own t-shirt to mourn the loss, as a thoughtful memory of the place.

The amount of effort put on my tribute t-shirt needed to be compensated with a fair amount of street food and new discoveries around the food, so I forced my friends C and K to Dalston at night, to the highly recommended Street Feast now in Dalston (didn't like it in Shoreditch and didn't tried it when in Camden). Shame that I have no evidence of the murder, but our Rib meat roll was famous on Friday amonst the visitors and acted as an improvised PR for the stall ('The Ribman'). In the twilight of the night, before heading to the parking lot where the market was placed, we, very insightfully, managed to discovered a quite tempting roof terrace. After digesting the 'celebrity' sandwich, we run curious to said building for a sneak peak: and it was totally worth it.

The Print House Gallery in Dalston opens its doors for us to enjoy their roof top, called by them Roof Park. Nice views.

But the hightlight of the weekend was undoubtedly the plan for Saturday. Bravely, K and I decided to adventure ourselves to the far East, ~~where no-one has gone before~~ -lie; it is actually near the Olympic site- (I just enjoy saying it)

Suggested by Le Cool London and apparently sponsored by Fiji Water, the Artesian Wanders (summer edition, because the Winter one, wanders -haha- around Southbank -saves for later-), has its starting point at Hackney Wick. A mere one station away from the, now crowded, Olympic Site but yet unexplored, it is an area surrounded by green and warehouses. Still industrial. The first thing I noticed was a Christiaan Nagel's mushroom (looks like the guy has been very busy lately, for my enjoyment), which certified that I was in the right place, and unprecedented clean streets compared to mine. Oh wow - I thought to my self-, while looking at the map finding the first landmark to find.

A shroom from Christiaan Nagel acting as a Northern Star in our route...

It was there really, hidden between some now up-cycled warehouses, in Prince Edward St turned into studios, the very appealing Hackney Pearl, that unfortunately I was not hungry enough to try and next to it, SEE Studio, hosting a very interesting exhibition about how the locals from the Wick lived the Olympic constructions. Also, thousands of copies of THE WICK paper, created, edited and printed by them, and of which I saved a copy to carefully study at home.

We found a giant shed with a cool exhibition right next to the Pearl. ~~I forgot to ask the guy about his name. Shame on me~~. Gnosis by RSH, in Wallis Rd.

A quick visit to Imperial & Standard and then we managed to head to the (now I know it's famous) White Post Lane.

First thing to notice: the walls decorated with what looked to me like traditional brand logos from early XX century. After doing my homework and researching more about it, I was actually not far from the truth: It was a regeration project by the arty Bread Collective, to pay some sort of tribute to what Hackney Wick used to be: terribly industrial landmark, house of famous or less famous British manufacturers of some sort (and also land of post-war debri). The result was a really impressive street painted with those logos from the old times from brands (I strongly recommend the reading about each individual one in their blog) most probably are still in the memories of a lot of people. The project is called The Walls Have Ears, and is the sort of thing I really enjoy finding more things about. I think it is a great idea and the execution was brilliant (you gotta love a bit of colour and typography in your street).

And when you least expect it... boom... An unseen CityzenKane

The corner on the opposite side of the road, advertised a cafe called Electric Matchbox but unfortunately, a guy, closed the fence behind us (leaving the door opened) and that and the fact that it look dead from the basement made us walk back to the main street. Had potential though. I had a funny feeling that those stairs could take us to a nice roof top or something like that.

Is somebody in there?

But then we headed towards a sign that announced The Yard but couln't find it very easily (we didn't put much effort on it, must admit), but by looking to our right side, towards the canal, we noticed a big White Building (actually called so).

I toof Hackney Wick and a map of the area + Fish Island (they were included as posters on the last edition of The Wick - just put it on my living room, because I'm THAT cool -). It is a very nice map, though.

Just found it funny. Looked nothing but funny, the place. (**Update. I just Googled the place. I am not going to link it)

It was actually at that moment, when we decided to stop for a bit and take a look at the views of the canal. A dark grey cloud was constantly threatening us, but we couldn't miss the opportunity of sitting al fresco. We were immediately tempted by the incredible smell of freshly made pizza coming from the building. What it actually was: The Crate, a microbrewery slash pizzeria by the canal.

So we sat in an empty communal table and waited for our Sage and truffled potato pizza (would have never tried the combo myself) and drank the house cider while philosophising about our lives. It was ten minutes after, probably halfway though the pizza and the idea of leaving it all and moving to a warehouse, when the graphite-grey cloud rained on our parade. Literally. Nevertheless, the day was still too beautiful, so we all run inside to keep sharing our tables until the shower was over.

Cyclops, Mighty Mo, Gold Peg and Sweet Toof

The mighty pizza...

Cool lamps. Old dodgy mattress springs and wire.

And we went back to the route

At that point, really overlooking then Olympic site (I refuse to put ANOTHER picture of the Stadium), I managed to find more of my street art heroes in less than 3 meters around, just in a very humble corner in the middle of Hackney Wick.