The Ragged School Blog

Louise House listed

2008-08-21T12:56:00.006Z

Forest Hill has been granted a minor victory in the battle against the trend of 'disposable heritage' - the blight which has seen historic London disappearing.
Louise house next to Forest Hill Pools has been Grade II listed.

Minor historical buildings are being systematically targeted in areas of London under-represented by conservationists and historians. Typically a building which falls through the listing system because of its insufficient architectural merit will be used by councils and developers 'working together' to create new plots, the building being written off as 'disposable heritage'. Often in a pre emptive strike the landlord will allow the building to fall into disrepair first and then tell the planning committee that it is better to pull it down and build something which will benefit the councils targets for housing, retail and public landscaping. In extreme cases (which are nevertheless common) the landowner will actively neglect the security of the buildings fabric so that it will become dangerous and 'irreparable'. Another common tactic is to draw up plans for a bland building and compare it to the greater expense of refitting the existing site, a fait accompli as a minimally specified bland building will necessarily cost less than a well restored and upgraded high quality building. The landowner/developer will implicitly threaten the council planners that they can only afford to demolish and rebuild their unsound/uneconomic building and if they dont get permission they will leave the site rotting.

When there is insufficient representation by local historians of the buildings historical merit, and pressure to put in its place a new build which is superior in facility, permission is granted for the building to be replaced, even by a bland building. Again due to the general ambivalence about architecture the outer London boroughs will accept proposals for bland buildings. There is a general trend that in order to avoid delays of controversy and debate that proposals must be bland, the blander the better. However more buildings do not equal better quality buildings.

So why is this happening all over outer London when boroughs in the centre use architects to reuse similar Victorian and industrial buildings with innovative refits which retain (at least) the shell and essential features whilst installing state of the art facilities such as energy efficiency, security, safety and accessibility ? The answer is demographic, the developers outside the centre are exploiting the fact that there are less active conservationists cataloguing and appraising the historic landscape.
This means there is an opportunity to try and rush through schemes before the conservationist community has ENOUGH time to react (by warning the public) and gather together all the evidence needed to properly appraise the cultural and historical significance of the site.

Much of inner London has been (and still is being) redeveloped whilst retaining many remaining historical features (even celebrating it), whereas in South London there has been an ever decreasing stock of 'historical remainders' which although as individual examples of building or history are small, they are disproportionately representative of the areas historical landscape. It is this fact - that they are more scarce which elevates them from being evaluated individually as 'minor'.

So how can the conservationist community work together in this particular situation to create a sufficient early warning system ? The answer is right here under your mouse pointer.

6th Lewisham Blogger's Meet Up

2008-07-29T09:38:00.002Z

To celebrate the 6th Lewisham Blogger's Meet Up I would like to reflect on the trends that have taken place since our first meeting on 18th November 2006. Firstly thankyou to Andrew Brown, and great to see The Dame, Clare, Michael, John, Andrew M, Claudia, Helen, Neil, Bob, Rob, and Max.

More civic societies and local groups use forums or have a website.
Bloggers and website creators have embedded dynamic content to keep a live overview of related content.
Peoples expectations means they will persist in searching for local content, which is then shared through social networking.
Bloggers study the source code of blogs which do something useful they could deploy themselves.
Help forums for bloggers have demystified how it all works.
TV, radio and newspapers have blogs and podcasts and discuss this on air.
People who still aren't sure what this blogging is 'all about' suddenly realise they have been reading blogs without knowing it.

In the old days getting access to people with 'know how' was sometimes off limits to people outside certain spheres. Bloggers and readers can access people and expertise. We are evolving so quickly in this area we must not overlook this historic turning point.

Aggregating the hyperlocal

2008-06-21T11:12:00.003Z

I'm glad to see the superb online growth in newsflow about South East London. Now everyone knows they can set up a webpage about a project - or they know someone who can show them. One interesting phenomena is the Wikipedia effect which has promoted the consolidation or aggregation of existing web content thus saving us time combing search results. The spin off has been beyond encyclopedic. Whole swathes of urban geography have been placed in Wikipedia, even if only to create a stub article which is like a seed to be cared for by adding content gradually, lovingly. This is the cult of the amateur, which in a cooperative environment creates societies of mind, societies of interest. By sheer collective effort the amateur is elevated to 'gentleman scientist'. To think this is the tip of the iceberg, we are thrilled by the speed of this Morse Code, unable to survey the colossus of a beast so cosmic, so amorphous.

If the old problem was the inaccessibility or invisibility of information the new problem is the sense of orientation in that cosmic amorphous 'space'. When everything is around you, and I mean everything, you need the map that shows 'you are here'.

So I was delighted to happen upon a new phrase - hyperlocal. Before a neologism can settle it needs to be pulled about and rattled to stress test its utility. So here is my definition: hyperlocal gives your search a point of view.

I think the trend is towards a division of labour between content creation and editing/assembly. More people will make crap videos, but more people will categorise that crap and when aggregated make it more useful. I dont want to know about a random journal of a random person, but I do want to know more about something thats on my mind and in my search results. If the best result comes with an option to search clusters of similar and related content then for that time my attention is all on randomsubjectalpha I can mine your crap and suddenly for that second its not crap its that total absorption you get when you are 'in the zone'.

Thats starting with a topic and 'zooming into' the field via search, but how about starting in a real field and zooming outward into a neighbouring field. Google Maps has made annotating real geography a way that helps us start with a tangible point in Cartesian space and moves in a proximity that defines the context and grounds us, it really does pin down information. For as long as there are people putting push pins into the map with exactitude we can stop searching and start finding.

Deptford X 2007

2007-09-16T11:56:00.000Z

Last year Deptford X ran for a month in November, this year it was brought forward to coincide with Deptford Design and the London Design Festival. However this also clashed with Open House Weekend. But as I noticed the fair weather I realised this shorter 4 day event closer to summer was logical. Doing less, but the right things helped even though this years fold out guide was as difficult to comprehend as previous years. Once I had worked out how to process down Deptford High Street without double backing on my route I set off to arrive at the train station for the 16 panels by artist Maggie Higginson and the pupils at Addey and Stanhope. I then headed over to Bearspace SE8 to see '4 emerging artists' stopping to talk with one of the Goldsmiths MA students
Florin Ungureanu and ask about the general mood.

Next I proceeded to Giffin Square to see Desire Lines by Helen Pailing which played to the festivals subheading Intervention with its subtle transformation of the market pergola structure. Red cord had been rigged to created two pagodas so simple and elegant and recalling the creative cleverness the festival has been entwined with since its inception. I turned around toward the Albany and was delighted by the stall showing an assemblage of found objects transformed. I told Leila Galloway who with Wayne Lucas had helped the students of Haberdasher Askes to create the pieces that I had been a former pupil and was now curious about the position of art in its curriculum. I was relieved that she had been very impressed by it. 60 year 10 students had taken pieces from Deptford Market and reworked them as sculpture, the resulting display able to delight the market shoppers.

Onto the Albany itself to 'Dear Nan' - pieces by Sam Jones and Kate Murdoch which again borrowed from the market both materials and a vernacular aesthetic. It was at this point I began to see a departure from the previous years satirical references and an emerging gentle and genuine sense of self acceptance which always accompanies a switch between Moderne and folk whenever this major battle in art flip flops every mini epoch. Off next to the anchor at the end of the high street, an intervention by Katie Gilman back from last year. She had beatifully wrapped the anchor in soft fluffy wool. Could this gesture represent a desire to treat Deptford with more care and attention than it has seen ?

I crossed over the Broadway to Deptford Properly the new cafe gallery to see
Stephen Molyneux whose work located in the small basement allowed my first visit to this charming oasis. People ate delicious cakes and salads from unmatching porcelain plates surrounded by a sense of intelligent sensitivity I havnt seen since Hales gallery cafe before it moved to Shoreditch. This place however is more intimate - more bijou. The actual installation in the basement struck a chord with my feelings that the festival had always been a cabal to enfranchise fellow artists with a private pep talk, a matrix of secret symbols coordinating a takeover of Deptford.

Haute Povera

2007-09-05T21:48:00.000Z

I have chosen to update the term Arte Povera coined by Germano Celant in 1967. Its a neologism to describe the massive outburst of furniture and decorative objects exhibited and sold since the millennium characterised by experimental forms. These pieces clearly celebrate lowly objects being repurposed as 'designer', only just stopping short of fine art in order to retain a sense of utility, a sense of fun . Some are practical to manufacture only because new fabrication techniques have come about controlled by computer aided design. Other 'one-off' pieces like those made by the Campana Brothers are hand made, unique and costly to assemble like couture hence the term Haute.

Whats really interesting is the UK scene which has gone into overdrive ever since design students have been graduating with our recent eco crisis conciousness. Aided and abetted by the far sighted impresarios Designersblock. Anything that was thrown away now seems like a blank template to design over and reinvent. It helps if you live near a flea market, but areas in London that have shot up in value have squeezed out cheap markets to be replaced with antiques and tourist tat. Luckily Deptford still has its cheap as chips, 'cheap and chipped' junk market which is its best badly kept secret. Clare Page and Harry Richardson from Committee at 198 Deptford High Street have been master exponents of Haute Povera gaining particular recognition with their elegant lamp stands made from items which look like 50p bargains that when assembled in a knowing way looks like the latest thing in a chic and hip hotel.

To mark the Deptford Design Weekend within the London Design Festival 2007, (and coinciding with DeptfordX) the local based design agency Raw Nerve have created the Deptford Design Market Challenge. The website there amply demonstrates 27 objects bought from the market and transformed in the Haute Povera style and their use of the charming appellation 'Deptford Thrift Market'. The objects will be on display at the Royal Festival Hall between the 15th and 20th September, with plenty other design festival treats.

If that hasnt whetted your appetite, how about upping the stakes by adding more luxe and visting TrashLuxe at Liberty from the 20th to the 30th September when the finest exponents of Haute Povera with their oh so good luxe will tease and delight your aesthetic taste buds, sore eyes and tender flesh. If you cant wait read this stomping blog posting about it from Dezeen.

Deptford Lives

2007-08-15T19:41:00.000Z

At the last episode of 'The Tower' on BBC1, the programme announcer said 'Deptford Lives' will appear on the Community Channel. Watch them online or if you have digital TV here are the programme numbers Sky 539 • Virgin TV 233 • Freeview 87 (6-9am) and show times.

The programme is billed as - "A series of short films set in one of London's most diverse boroughs: Deptford. Four very different characters celebrate the area while exploring the tensions as the developers move in." The short films will show Patricio and Julian from Artmongers, recycling hero Chris Carey, Ernie and Barrie from Witcomb Cycles and Caffy St Luce from Music Tourist Board.

Britain's Bad Developers

2007-08-12T14:08:00.000Z

I have tried hard to understand why so much bad building is 'allowed' ever since my architectural tutors began to educate me in the matter 16 years ago. Back then the subject I pondered was an aesthetic one about the built environment as 'fit for purpose'. This naturally was economic, ergonomic and visual in nature. Since I had been labouring under the impression that historical and ecological sites of importance were 'protected' I had not at that time taken a serious interest in the 'politics' of urban development, I was then too naive to realise that building had politics, my fault for studying Interior Design rather than Architecture. This situation was subsequently rectified at The University Of North London where the Interior Design course was a subset of the Faculty of Environmental and Social Studies. This resulted in teaching of both architecture and design as a social act first albeit within the context of an engineering or technological framework. This distinction will provide social historians with plenty of research material about the changing role of universities (in transacting an ethical purpose above and beyond an immediate strategic and economic one).

When Polytechnics were able to become universities they widened the range of courses available so they could net more students to capture any available funding. This radically altered the demographic intake of students, and the subject matter being studied. Without sufficient forward planning there has arose a chronic lack of science graduates and skilled trades people, which has had terrible consequences on the building industry, and a brain drain on scientists - a heavy price to our economy, but the new (easier to get into) universities have created a massive shift in social mobility. It is now possible (perhaps necessary even) for traditional demographics to implode as institutions and positions of responsibility are now peopled through an idealistically meritocratic system modelled on the American one. In an interview for a top job today you are more likely to be ruled out after a psychometric test than for wearing the wrong school tie. This is not yet proportionately reflected in the ownership of wealth, despite gradual shifts in Britain's top 100 rich list, if anything the subject of wealth ownership has shifted from individual ownership to complex transnational ownership as the worlds richest people devise ever more complex tax avoidance schemes. This in turn has created a new dimension in social class in Britain, go to Chelsea today and your more likely to find the Russians !

At the other end of the spectrum the lowest paid and most unregulated work is being snapped up by economic migrants who are 'grateful', whilst Britain's 'traditional' lower and middle income families who have relied on lesser and semi skilled work (but once semi secure) jobs which are disappearing all the time are busy numbing themselves - forgoing financial planning, nutritious meals and exercise to pay for flat screen TVs, ready meals and expensive clothes and cars with credit, and if they can get a mortgage, one that may not ever be repaid.

Move across the block to Imperial Wharf (previously Fulham Gasworks) and you will find the central focus of an excellent documentary by Andrew Gilligan broadcast on Channel 4's Dispatches entitled Briatin's Bad Housing, Monday 30th July which appeared in The Evening Standard the same day, of which I can refer. A story about Imperial Wharf written in The Evening Standard in 2002 captures the schemes ambitions to create a sort of super complex which got planning permission by creating 50% 'affordable' housing where a two bedroom flat could cost £425,000 instead of the cheapest 'market housing' side where a 2 bed flat is £600,000. In the current market these preposterous sums still represent speculative investments and many will be purchased as houses to be sold on later. Remember the couple in BBC's The Tower who had purchased with the help of the brides mother a new 'luxury' apartment. The camera caught their concerns about whether the area was right for them when they dismissed Deptford 'not regenerating fast enough' by saying "don't worry we will be selling the flat and moving in 2 years".

It turns out that a PR company little known outside the building industry called PPS has carved out a highly successful niche in winning developers planning permission for unpopular schemes by lobbying councils in the same way the American political system allows the lobbying of politicians. Except here in Britain its all done in a very British and discreet way. They have infiltrated local campaigns with a brief to neutralise antipathy towards controversial schemes. The Channel 4 programme and article in the Standard detail specific evidence which is too long to quote verbatim for this already long blog posting, and for liability reasons I cannot paraphrase it. When the Standard contacted PPS about their work to help the developers St.George win planning permission from Hammersmith and Fulham Council, they claimed to have destroyed their files from 10 years ago 'in accordance with normal company practice'.

As much as I was repulsed at this expose I can at last rest that my initial hypothesis about 'Stealth Developers Stealth Campaigners' was in the right ball park.

Aragon - The Tower

2007-07-23T15:38:00.000Z

In order to focus my critique of 'The Tower' on BBC1, I am writing this without first reading the specific comments people are making in the local press and forums. The series on the conversion of Aragon Tower into 'The Z Building/Apartments' is a grand piece of cinematic provocation. By selectively following the very contrasting circumstances of families on the Pepys Estate the documentary creates a chiaroscuro with very few developed grey tonalities. If the intention was only to compare different ways of life then so be it, but the best productions in this genre create tension through more complex ambiguities. The sheer sterility depicted of the 'new residents' who are afraid of 'the real locals' is tangible like cold stainless steel. The action is not contained uniquely inside the Pepys Estate but spill out onto John Evelyn pub, whose storyline is the most ideologically unselfconscious, nostalgic and heart tinkering. Given the fact that the film as social document is not delineated by the estate boundary, why wasnt footage taken from other proximities which would reveal the rainbow hues across this complex and historically important village. I believe the editing of this series should have taken greater account to incorporate the range of economic and social activity which shows that Deptford has always been a bellwether area. I believe that Deptford needs to take back control of its own image and I appeal to readers to continue to blog about this complex and fascinating confluence. The Deptford.tv project was an extraordinary intervention in this sense and perhaps one day for this reason we will no longer need the trickery of big budget TV. To the series producers I say chutzpah is your forte but not a successful parachute for the death of old media. We all have our own cameras now and were ready to shoot.

Cutty Sark

2007-06-27T08:14:00.000Z

East Greenwich Pleasaunce

2007-04-09T19:40:00.000Z

The Friends of East Greenwich Pleasaunce on Sunday led a walk around the this little known secluded park - a former orchard before being acquired by The Admiralty in 1856. The ground was needed to expand the old naval hospital cemetery (beside what is now The National Maritime Museum) and later move parts of it when the railway tunnel to Maze Hill was constructed. The Pleasaunce is situated close to Westcombe Park train station where there is a modern but obscure small entrance on Halstow Road.

The main entrance on Chevening Road is no more visible from the very busy Woolwich road but for the curious original entrance which I have passed many times and wondered about. I must have read about it first in Open House several years ago and remained unaware that it was connected to this fascinating entrance. Because the park is on a gentle slope, the back affords a view of Canary Wharf.

Crossrail Woolwich

2007-03-28T22:55:00.000Z

On Thursday March 22, Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for Transport, made a statement to the Crossrail Select Committee concerning an additional provision to the Crossrail Bill of a station at Woolwich. He said:

' ... The key to this has been Greenwich Council's recent proposal for a major revision to its spatial plan, to allow a significantly higher density of development at Woolwich. This, in turn, has prompted Berkeley Homes to offer a means of enabling a station to be built at Woolwich but, crucially, without adding to the current cost of Crossrail.

In light of this, agreement has been reached in principle with Berkeley Homes under which they will build the basic box structure of a station at Woolwich and then construct their own development overhead. This will all be done at their own risk, using their own money, to the specification laid down by CLRL, with a payment back to Berkeley Homes of the saving CLRL will make through avoiding other works at Woolwich, when it constructs the line there.

In due course, Berkeley Homes would then arrange for the completion of the station box to full operational status. Both they and Greenwich Council recognise that the completion of the station would be conditional on receiving sufficient funding contributions from those developers and businesses that stand to benefit from a Crossrail station at Woolwich. The contributions would be in addition to any London-wide Crossrail funding arrangements that may be agreed and no additional public sector debt capacity would be made available. Fit-out of the station could take place only once sufficient private sector contributions had been received.

More work needs to be done to flesh out this deal but the House can now have sufficient confidence that Berkeley and Greenwich Council have the commitment and the right incentives to do that. This is a very significant change from the position last October as there is now a clear way forward that can deliver a station at Woolwich without adding to the costs of Crossrail already identified.'

The Chairman of the Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill, Alan Meale, remarked: 'We are delighted that the Department has seen sense and accepted the Committee's decision. This is an enabling step and moves towards the Committee's strong view that a station at Woolwich is an essential part of the Crossrail Bill. We must move forward on this important matter.'

Walking Forest Hill

2007-03-21T21:29:00.000Z

When the Forest Hill Society organised a walk led by Steve Grindlay in February I braved the rain and had a lovely day out. On the walk I overheard somebody mention his new blog and we talked about the subject.
The blog Walking the Streets of Forest Hill is thoroughly recommendable. Rob McIntosh has packed it out with photos and commentary about his mission to walk every street in SE23.

stealth developers stealth campaigners

2006-12-16T03:36:00.000Z

Issue 1 of the Forest Hill Society newsletter has come through the door and proves that through a systematic and rigorous response to planning applications we can build strong community dialogues around defending the quality of the built environment. The article by the embryonic society showed how using existing expertise from the neighbouring Sydenham society raised clear, appropriate and focused objections to the 'Finches site' plans. The article debunks the jargon and sheds light on what significant efforts are required by local people to respond in a timely manner.

In recent years developers have been exploiting a cultural loophole which means that because the planning process is so complicated they can speculate on land and buildings whilst stealthily planning to 'dawn raid' a sleepy public with planning applications using crack teams of planning sycophants. These 'consultants' use the same ram raiding tactics of predatory financiers (who break up portfolios of assets) to rush through a legally valid programme which 'ticks boxes' but is lacking in vision and ethical initiative. Because the window of opportunity to submit 'valid' objections in such a short time frame many applications are insufficiently opposed. In many ways the situation is analogous to a dispute between a multimillion pound company with full time lawyers and a 'man on the street'. After losing again and again, the man on the street begins to give in feeling outnumbered. We must reverse this travesty in planning and set the expectation of these developers to meet fierce resistance to any second rate designs. Instead of a cynically drawn up plan which perfectly complies to laws about what planning committees must accept, (and by corollary what people cannot legally object to) we must reshape this process and in so doing put outstanding design and environmental responsibility into the heart of an enforceable screening process. As we cannot rely solely on governmental and council procedures to act with such initiative we need as a community to turn the tide in the way local people respond to the planning process.

All across London other civic amenity and campaigner groups are building expert case material about ongoing campaigns on which cultural and legal submissions were needed to persuade the developers and the local planners to agree meeting higher quality outcomes. Many of these campaigns were pre emptive and involved raising awareness of local community assets before they came under threat. The Qwaggy Waterways Action Group for instance continuously monitor threats and opportunities to the highly scarce resource of a natural waterway weaving through dense conurbations towards Deptford Creek. Their acute success in re naturalising the water channel through Chinbrook meadow (behind Grove Park Station) will undoubtedly bring much needed gravitas to planning objections/suggestions around the path of the waterway through the proposed 'Lewisham Gateway' - a potentially embarrassing project to turn Lewisham into a small version of Croydon.

Albany Utility Room

2006-12-01T00:49:00.000Z

Artist: Richard Crow

Title: Imaginary hospital radio

Location: Utility Room at The Albany

Deptford X 2006

Description: Utilising recordings made in situ, 'treated' environmental, ambient and 'medical noise', poetic narratives, archive recordings and audio contributions from invited collaborators and guests, IHR subtly mimics and 'subverts' (through ironic appropriation) conventional Hospital radio and its supposed aim to pacify its patients. IHR creates experimental radio broadcasts, in which the hospital, its "unwanted" sounds and noises become the sound source par excellence. IHR both inhabits the psychological and physical space (of the hospital), rather than offering an alternative space outside of itself.

Biography: Richard Crow is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses sound and noise in a performative way, for its spatial and subjective qualities and above all for its psychological implications for the listener. Over the past decade his solo and collaborative site-specific installations and performances have consisted of highly conceptualized interventions into base materiality, investigations of alternative systems of organization and research into a certain material decadence, most notably with the project The Institution of Rot. Recent works like Ancolie (South London Gallery), Speaker, stain, silence (for AGM 05, Prefix Gallery, Toronto), Aurélia (Sound Art Museum, RAM, Rome) consist of dense and unsettling soundscapes that oscillate around loss and displacement through disembodied voices and experimental transmissions.

Deptford X 2006

2006-11-30T20:46:00.000Z

Today during a walk scheduled by the festival, I had a rare opportunity to talk with the first director of Deptford X - Reuben Thurnhill. I thought it would be an ideal chance to appraise the development of the festival. One theme apparent which is still evident this year is showing artists from outside Deptford or Lewisham.

We started at The Albany where I had already examined 3 of the audio works from graduates of the MA in Sonic Arts Middlesex of University (run by Deptford artist and composer Nye Parry). It definitely pronounced the concept of using the festival platform for artists not directly working inside Deptford, but instead 'connected'. Contrast this approach with the last 2 years 'international artists' theme which apparently upset local artists evidently unsympathetic to this strategy.

The first thing we saw was the Stark Gallery presenting 3 artists in an arch in Resolution Way. We spoke to ex-blacksmith Andy Baldwin who made these magnificent metal kinetic sculptures. These archways have previously been a much needed large space for exhibits - with a central off high street location. We commented how much fewer arches were now being used this year (just one!) an indicator of the areas diminishing availability of cheap or free spaces to show works.

Next up was a classic shop stalwart of Deptford High Street - Johnny’s DIY store, which boasts being the oldest building in Deptford according to this years Deptford X website. This space has always been the champion of art amongst the streetscape in the festivals history. Artmongers who made the work called Metaphor Sale are great protagonists of public art and are the creators of two of the locales most iconic imagery - the cow bins and the mural in Giffin Square. The Artmongers have also created an anamorphic 'welcome to Deptford' (cleverly referencing the anamorphic momento mori in Holbein's The Ambassadors) it can be seen from the eastbound staircase at the station, as can two cow bins on the adjacent roof. The effect of Metaphor Sale and the welcome image is very knowing and ironically reassures the initiated that Deptford X is deeply rooted in the idea of art situated outside a gallery setting. This is the festivals most clever crossover act, to interpret the programmes stated aims and question the complex applicability of bourgeois culture in an area least acclimatised to it.

We walked across the church pathway towards Sue Godfrey Park through Ferranti Park, past The Laban toward The Creekside Environmental Centre. Local artist Alison Day showed her botanical drawings and we discussed the availability of gallery space as Alison has been involved in Lewisham Arthouse (a splendid architectural asset of the borough). I spoke of the disappearing vernacular culture and particularly lamented the closure of Goddards Pie Shop in Greenwich. Reuben was devastated and Alison remarked that (the old Bosuns Yard site, now Cutty Sark DLR) mall could be Victoria station, a cutting and brutal critique of the high street in Greenwich. I think in Lewisham we must bolster our mission statement to safeguard the high street from loosing local character and underwrite the safeguarding of buildings like Lewisham Arthouse from possibly ever being lost to community use.

Next we headed to the Music Complex to see silkscreen prints by David Upstill, shown on a floor atop the music recording and rehearsing enterprise, another great exponent of how the festival integrates spare pockets to introduce visitors to spaces otherwise undiscovered. This has always been my favourite theme, the discovery of 'Deptford the invisible'.

Last on the trail was a visit to Live Bar an old bank building whose webwise owners are cleverly using Myspace to build an online groove and all without incurring expensive web design fees. As soon as I looked inside my eyes popped out my head as I hadnt been in before, the atmosphere is exactly the perfect balance between cool and comfortable - the perfect end.

Lewisham bloggers have met

2006-11-19T15:45:00.000Z

Last night 10 of the Lewisham bloggers met in the Jolly Farmers pub (nee Hogs Head by Lewisham Hospital) for a pleasant evening in which we all had a lovely chat. Andrew Brown had created the open invitation to bloggers in the borough. I have read about similar meetings amongst the 'blogging community' and knew it was only a matter of time before it happened in Lewisham. Thankyou to Andrew Brown for taking the initiative.

The topics discussed were various, though inevitably in such an acoustically precarious setting it was difficult to discuss any technical comparison of the various blogging platforms, or conduct conversation with more than 3 people. I wonder if we should have forcibly swapped seats every half hour in a manner similar to speed dating or networking events? Naturally we discussed local politics, technology and miscellaneous gossip but I forgot to ask everyone whether they used Firefox. Now that Firefox 2 has both inline spell checking and will restore from a browser crash (with the text typed into a form saved and ready to resume typing) it is the perfect platform.

10 out of 20 invited was a good turn out, but I implore other Lewisham bloggers to come to any future meet up, its great fun, especially as you feel like you already know a bit about everyone.

The 9 others sitting clockwise from me were:

Bob from Brockley
Sue Luxton
Andrew Milton
Andrew Brown
John Paschoud
James Cleverly
Max Calo
Jens Winton
Tom Hamilton

Forest Hill Society

2006-10-09T22:01:00.000Z

The Ragged School Blog congratulates The Forest Hill Society now available on Blogspot. I attended their first AGM recently because despite this blog starting off about Deptford, I do actually live in Forest Hill (gasp!). A short clip from the AGM is on YouTube. Given this unique opportunity to follow the creation and development of a new civic society I will widen the coverage of The Ragged School Blog to include all Lewisham borough, hopefully a chance to contrast and compare local amenities and culture within the same borough. I will also be introducing the topic 'Community Futurology' to the blog. I coined the term as I intend to create a new branch of Futurology which looks at how local communities interact using technology. Continuous research (using mini focus groups of around 3 people at a time) will discover how using such things as video blogging and Google Earth can enable better civic forums. I will be developing a new research model based around Open Source and the Creative Commons to publish and peer review my research. Anyone participating in the 'focus groups' will agree to the findings being published (using privacy adjusted data). The data will then be used to create and continuously update briefing packs and instructional material for new groups wishing to start using technology as a civic forum.

Cockpit Arts

2006-09-30T20:40:00.000Z

During September I visited many venues in the London Design Festival but it was a treat to look inside Cockpit Arts on Creekside. Having been to the RSVP Deptford event at Spitalfields to launch the Festival I had already glimpsed a piece by Becky Oldfield (whose studio is pictured). This charming young designer creates original pieces of textile based furniture (lampshades, cushions, blinds etc) using British memorabilia. We had a lovely chat about 'good old Deptford' and Becky kindly allowed me to take this picture.

Borthwick Wharf demolition reprieve

2006-08-16T23:35:00.000Z

P.S. 19 November , finally got round to updating this story: Borthwick is being demolished despite below.

Following both a letter from The Creekside Forum and seeing the front page of the latest Mercury, I am pleased to read there is a reprieve to the demolition of Borthwick Wharf.

The story appears here.

Borthwick Wharf

2006-08-04T10:36:00.000Z

A recent ad hoc meeting in Twinkle Park took place to alert local heritage campaigners that Borthwick Wharf has commenced its demolition programme. The Edwin Cooper cold storage wharf is a fine example of early 20th century brick building. The site could have been a spectacular conversion with similar potential of Tate Modern. Sadly Greenwich Council planning department and every ruling authority above it have granted the demolition of the building to a developer who will replace it with bland apartments. The whole story is quite long and complicated and for reasons of propriety I will wait until I can recount the exact truth before publishing any further details. Suffice to say that the decision represents a gross setback for both the conservation movement and modern 'regenerationists' who advocate reusing old buildings.

Greenwich Watch

2006-06-14T15:46:00.000Z

Just got back from Greenwich University to see an architecture degree show and popped into the Tourist Information Centre where I get my fix of leaflets on whats on. I picked up the News Shopper which we never get delivered and when I got home was delighted to see an article about a new website called Greenwich Watch. The website which also uses Blogger (an easy and free way for everyone to create a website) says of its raison d'etre:

Why did we feel we needed to run a blog dedicated to watching Greenwich Council? Well we're long standing residents of the borough and we felt that the Council had become somewhat autocratic, and it seemed to spend a lot of time spinning. We rarely saw the Council seriously held to account in the local press and we felt that we could have more impact on the web than in any other way.

... from About Us on greenwichwatch.blogspot.com

The site is anonymous and allows anonymous comments so that you can post or email "any news, rumours or gossip about Greenwich Council, its work and its councillors... We'll do our best to publish what the local press can't."

The site is well written and well laid out thus setting extremely high standards for community journalism. I hope its main impact will be to alert local activists and campaigners to understanding the role such web tools will be playing in local matters.

Thames Gateway Podwalk

2006-06-01T13:21:00.000Z

As part of Architecture Week 2006 in June, Wayne Hemingway the designer has recorded a podwalk, taking listeners from Greenhithe station for a 2-3 mile walking audiotour. The great thing about podwalking is the fact that its just an mp3 file like any other which you can listen to at home (with or without a mp3 player). The tour is a critique of the regeneration schemes around the Thames Gateway from a designer well known for his contribution the debate on architecture and urban planning. As a walking audio tour, the commentary serves as both a guide to the riverside and a context rich narrative about landscape.

Anyone with a voice recorder can make a podwalk and host it for others to listen to. The genre is still very new as audioguides are traditionally studio produced and distributed in a closed setting. Podwalking, audioblogging and podcasting can be recorded using a cheap mike directly into a computer or out in the field with any recording equipment. You can record a single take with no editing, or collect material and put is together with background sounds and music to produce a professional programme. You can even meet in a cafe or pub and record directly into a laptop.

So as part of the OpenStreetMap project, my friend Nick Hill was interviewed by Steve Coast in a pub in Camden. The resulting interview (about using GPS to share map data) shows how podcasting is a new route to engage audiences in projects.

An interesting twist happened at the Hayward Gallery recently during the retrospective of Dan Flavin. The gallery created a website which allowed visitors to download 6 ambient soundscapes to be played back during your visit to the gallery. The sounds were specifically created as a compliment to the exhibition space.

Shipwrights Palace

2006-05-24T00:44:00.000Z

OpenStreetMap locative Deptford

2006-05-14T00:42:00.000Z

My friend Nick Hill (shown right) has just got back from the Isle of Wight workshop and is shown here with Adnan Hadzi of Deptford.tv and LiquidCulture. We met at Deckspace in Greenwich to discuss how the Deptford.tv database of user submitted video clips could be mapped geographically without infringing copyright map data. So I asked Nick to invite Steve (of OpenStreetMap) who has been working on Free The Postcode. Despite being very busy he kindly joined us before heading up to Mapchester.

It is becoming possible to create synergies between 'offline projects' (with little or no digital presence) and the Copyleft and Free Software movement, for whom continuous innovation is a driving force. Once the Deptford section of OpenStreetMap is complete, work can start to create an open ecosystem of locative media based on user submitted content, a whole system freed up of some commercial and legal restrictions. As the offline based user groups start to get involved, they will be able to start a discussion around Copyleft, the Creative Commons and the common creation and ownership of digital content. In return, case study material about users and creators experience can be fed back to software developers and system designers to help simplify and enhance the usabilty of the free digital platform.

Perhaps the sum total of such rich exchanges between various groups could extend the areas reputation as a creative hub and on into the realm of digital innovation.

blogging Deptford in 1842

2006-05-09T23:04:00.000Z

At the recent We Media conference, big media hitters continued to investigate the astonishing relentless rise of blogging. Such conferences let established media concerns comfort each other in an age where traditional journalism is under the spotlight. Though it is emerging that the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian are at the vanguard of the off/on-line blur. Amongst the main issues are speed and coverage, so called citizen journalists, (or just people with mobile phones and digital cameras) are catching stories and uploading photos/video/text and audio quicker because sites like Blogger, Flickr and YouTube allow quick (and easy) content hosting, tagging and comments. Then sites like Digg create flash floods of traffic, and Technorati tracks links to blog posts. In other words, blog a little and let others group content by tags and relevant links in comments.

In January 2006 a whale was stuck in the Thames and a blog immediately appeared (first entry 12.12 pm Friday) at lewiswhalewatch.blogspot.com - The web site at one stage was being looked up by journalists to research the story on the same day. This in particular shows the power of a blog consisting a mere 2 days entries - albeit many small enteries hour by hour, reviewing it today reminds us how blogging is history presented backwards, as the most recent entry appears first (in a diary or calendar it appears last) making a chronological narrative sometimes jarring. It also shows how quickly website content or commentary can reach an audience. On the same day at 6.24pm, an entry about the story was created on Wikipedia referencing the BBC website article published just 7 minutes previous.

When this sketch was done of a previous wayward whale in 1842, caught off Deptford and exhibited on a stand made especially, think how long it took the artist to produce the picture and for it to be reprinted. In contrast we can now expect that todays news events however obscure will be uploaded to Flickr, like when The Sultans Elephant ( a spectacular street theatre in central London) was covered using 'sent in photos' on the BBC London website in a well presented manner, whilst photos and videos from the 3 day event started pouring into Flickr and YouTube on Friday (the first day) with greater coverage.

Deptford is all around you

2006-04-22T21:49:00.000Z

This is the approach down Hales Street I would have originally taken when walking a new route from Deptford High Street towards Deptford Church Street to catch a 47 bus (opposite Wavelengths Leisure centre). At that time the building was not covered in 'permission based graffiti', but was still orangey red brick. I remember thinking, what is this place, an old wash house ? When I read the plaque which said Ragged School, I immediately thought about Jerwood Space in Union Street SE1, a Victorian school converted to a very successful mixed arts facility opened in 1998. Its something which has inspired my investigations into urban regeneration working with heritage, not against it. Naturally I imagined the Ragged School to have similar potential for Deptford. I didnt then know anything about the building until I returned another day when the door was open and to my amazement there was a gallery showing. The place was alive with artists and visitors coming and going and reminded me more of the atmosphere of The Foundry at Great Eastern Street EC2. Just as I was getting excited about a vibrant new creative zone, I learned that the fate of the building was uncertain. Within that I realised that so many minor historical buildings around Britain are being used as 'regeneration firewood'. I am using this blog to make associations with groups and individuals to explore how digital technologies are letting citizens reclaim 'regeneration' from the glossy brochures and sales rhetoric, and back into the hands of local people. Creativity is more important than funding, grants, investment etc, as money will always go towards a vision that works, but just a shiny new building will not neccessarily attract visionary activity.

Molly outside John Evelyn Pub

2006-04-13T22:18:00.000Z

This is a video of Fowlers Troop performing in Deptford, December 2005. They are doing a Molly dance. The embedded video is hosted by YouTube which makes sharing video easy. The video comes from Richard Sanderson, who is the author of Baggage Reclaim blog. Its a good example of traditional and cyber culture dancing around each other. There are also related pictures on Flikr from outside The Dog and Bell pub. Both are examples of hosting media without needing a website. With people soon video blogging directly from mobile phones we will have to get used to a new era in the way we look at events and places in our culture through a constellation of clips, submitted and commented on by 'citizen journalists'.

Deptford Social Economy

2006-04-11T13:46:00.000Z

In October 2005, a conference called 'Progressing the Social Economy' happened in the Old Seager Distillery, Deptford. I have just reviewed their website and thought it was an excellent example of local community action made visible through basic web technology. Of particular note is the archival of audio and rough transcripts summarizing each speaker, as ordered by appearance. I missed the conference but was able to learn so much from these transcripts. I wonder how many other similar constructive projects in Deptford are rendered invisible without this crucial web representation ?

Due to Deptfords long standing constitution as a matrix of 'underpaid artisans' the area has evolved to become expert in self provisioning. There is a wide range of co-operative activity where basic quality of life issues are developed in practical projects, almost always initiated by necessity. Amongst this matrix appears the traditional 'intervening philanthropists' who further embellish this provisioning with varying results. In these particular circumstances, it is interesting to see which social projects survive and thrive, and which decay, gracefully or otherwise. When money and sponsorship is scarce, the projects which choose innovation always survive - their legacy is transmitted beyond a set lifespan, their usefulness is unbounded by place or material fabric. 'How to get things done better' always distinguishes a lasting contribution to society and culture. The Albany theatre for instance is historically the result of an educational outreach project whose mission was to give access to education for the hundreds of 'gut girls' working in the slaughterhouse on the site which is now Convoys Wharf. The project has evolved over a century and is now a linchpin in Deptford, using performing arts as the most vibrant and effective form of inclusion.

More recent, digitally based projects such as Boundless.coop and Deptford.tv has moved the notions of outreach further on and into the realm of 'self provisioning media', using such places as the Albany site as a meeting facility. My recent trip with Deptford.tv showed how the Laban with its conferencing rooms is also able to provide this crucial space. By drawing on the local traditions of community participation, these activities initiated by local people is moving the discourse about 'regeneration' away from top down schemes mediated by institutions, governmental and 'traditional philanthropy' and toward local, flexible and innovation based projects powered by a sense of shared ownership.

Google Earth Greenwich

2006-04-04T18:27:00.000Z

Whilst at Deckspace during the recent Deptford.tv project launch, James Stevens overheard me discussing Google Earth and told me about Greenwich Emotion Map which is - as far as I am aware, the first major project of this type in south east London. The Google Earth program allows users to look at satellite photography of an area and overlay any data onto it. Christian Nold worked with residents of the Greenwich Peninsula to capture and annotate various experiences which were mapped using GPS to record the location. Later the data was sorted in a way which enables users to filter various 'layers' in Google Earth. Using this technique it is possible to make sense of a dense conurbation and allow visitors and residents to take ownership of how it is signposted and narrated. This will have a major effect on how we consult information about a locale (without recourse to traditionally authoritative sources). It show us how this technology can bring forward existing projects and interests making them visible (in a world where mounds of text feel like swimmining in glue.) Fortunately, a fellow blogger (Archeology of the Future) has written a great entry detailing his day participating in the project.

19 Princelet Street

2006-04-01T00:11:00.000Z

Following my theme of tracing the descent of local history into rank obscurity, and what I call disposable heritage, I would like to contrast the plights of two buildings. They both represent architecture as the essential fabric which documents society and culture. One is gone, one is fighting to stay alive. The one that has disappeared is a kindred to The Ragged School of which this blog is a plaque in cyberspace. I found it, as I always do, by accident whilst browsing around. The Sydenham Society website has a page on Boys' Industrial Home, Perry Rise also known as Shaftesbury House which was demolished in 2000. As the building is now gone, I found this web page a touching echo of mine as the author asks why and how, letting us honour what would have otherwise been cast into the void. Anyone wishing to trace the fate of The Ragged School / Princess Louise Institute Hales Street only need look here to see how easy it SHOULD be to track down vital documents (re: why was permission granted to demolish a known historic building).

So to contrast, please check out 19 Princelet Street off Brick Lane, which is still extant, a house and heritage campaign with every plotline you could wish for, not least that it is an "unrestored Huguenot master silk weaver's home, whose shabby frontage conceals a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden." I have visited this magical space and its best feature is to educate people that such vital historical documents are seriously at risk and no one will automatically come to help. Only we, the community, and more recently the internet community can help make visible the plight of Britains disappearing (and sometimes simply invisbile) heritage before it is simply too late.

Blogging Lewisham and Britain

2006-03-31T23:12:00.000Z

When anybody first starts using a search engine and is surprised at the millions of results a simple query can return, its not long before they start seeing if they can do the complete opposite and find something difficult and obscure, just to prove if you can find a needle in the worlds biggest ever haystack. After some success with sussing out search then you think "but if it has this, then why not this" ? Sometimes trawling through tens (or hundreds) of search results only makes sense if you perform the same searches repeatedly over a long time period, its then that trends become apparent. Trends such as broken, abandoned and disappearing web sites, or more positively perhaps, the gradual emergence of hubs or communities of interest and the growth of accurate and useful information. A trend in particular at the moment (not surprisingly) is local councillors getting a blog, because if they don't, they will be blogged about anyway, and in any competition which relies so heavily on reputation and active support, you simply couldn't afford not to have a blog now. I myself like discussions which transcend partisan politics to advocate useful ideas and make any idea open to analysis and improvement. So when I found this PDF (about 1.15 MB) about 'Civic Leadership Blogging' I was delighted at such a well thought out and presented exposition. As the wording inside the PDF file puts it:
The "Civic Leadership Blogging Project," a UK Local e-Democracy effort led by NorthLincsNet of the North Lincolnshire Council, is a focused effort to look beyond blogging's current image and pilot ways it can be used for local civic leadership.
I really do recommend any serious bloggers to give it a flick even if they arent blogging for election purposes, and if your studying or teaching citizenship its very good material to cite. Meanwhile I welcome one of Lewishams newest blogs: Green Ladywell

Creative Commons edgital culture

2006-03-27T21:21:00.000Z

On Friday as part of the deptford.tv series of launch events (which created a local context to explore the Creative Commons) there was a walk all over Deptford guided by Pete Pope and Ben Gidley. Starting at The Albany we went via Fordham park, past The Rubbish Fairy and Prangsta on New Cross Road and onto the Ben Pimlott building, the new purpose built facility for Goldsmiths. We were allowed to go onto the balcony and see the scribble sculpture close up. There was a terrific view of London, I especially relished the view of Olympia warehouse, a Victorian cast iron building at Convoys Wharf, which is mostly unknown to people in Deptford as the large site is enclosed by a 10ft wall. The beautiful shape of the twin roofs which covered the slipways is the hidden crown of Deptfords invisible history. Next we went to Bearspace cafe on Deptford high street, which is a calm oasis. At each stop we watched a short documentary built using the clips from the Deptford.tv video database. Participants were able to discuss architecture, film theory and technology in situ. Next we went to the Laban via the Thomas Archer masterpiece St.Pauls Church. Inside the Laban, we had a quick guided tour by a well meaning staff member who was blissfully unaware of the irony when she pointed out 'a feature' through the window saying "and you've got Deptford over there, which is an up and coming area."

After a visit to a participants home in Stowage, where the very personal story of how legacy film and video footage has been digitized into a legacy for local-social historians and The Creative Commons, we went to Deckspace inside the old Greenwich Borough Hall building for our last tea and cake, a nice sit down and a chat. In summary the walk was very much a clarion call for how culture at the edge (which I term edgital) is actually at the centre of whats really happening now. It was like looking into a crystal ball to see how digital technologies in combination with Free Software and Copyleft are transforming the social and historical landscape.

Old Ladywell Pool Fire

2006-03-24T10:52:00.000Z

from London Fire Brigade :
SUNDAY 19 MARCH

Ladywell – fire in disused building
Eight fire engines and around forty firefighters were called to a blaze at disused swimming baths on Ladywell Road, Lewisham this afternoon. The fire destroyed approximately a third of the building.

The Brigade was called at 1601 and the fire was under control by 1832. Fire crews from Lewisham, Greenwich, Lee Green, Forest Hill and Downham fire stations attended the incident. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

picture from derelictlondon.com

Telegraph Hill Festival

2006-03-23T01:45:00.000Z

On Tuesday night I trekked to St.Catherines Church community centre opposite Askes in the first journey from home to 'school' in about 15 years. I walked via Brockley Station and was pleased to see the new Brockley Common is actually being built ! The reason for this foray was not to relive walking to school, though I was surprised at the amount of happy memories which came flooding back and stunned at the magnificent view of the city at night from Telegraph Hill. The purpose of my visit, to hear Neil Gordon-Orr from Transpontine give his talk about the musical history of New Cross and Deptford, which was a real treat. Afterwards I bought Neils 'Deptford Fun City' booklet which is a great read and valuable addition to my collection on local history. When the time came for comments, I was intrigued to hear that someone has apparently gone to that wall near the Laban and used an angle grinder to remove the girl wearing a divers helmet from the Blur series by Banksy. I'm yet to check but will pop past next time I'm nearby.

East London Line

2006-03-21T00:24:00.000Z

As I criss cross the web, following one link to the next, I occasionally see something that strikes a chord. I had planned myself to write an article detailing the manner in which Deptford is linked to Brick Lane by the umbilical cord that is the East London Line. This peculiar off shoot of London Underground in the peak hours terminates northbound at Pedley Street, Shoreditch which is so perfect for Brick Lane. I relish the prismatic culture of Brick Lane being the perfect backdrop for many Degree shows by art and graphic design students every summer at Free Range, Truman Brewery. Its also nice to walk via Brick Lane when visiting both The White Cube Gallery (Hoxton Square) and the Whitechapel Gallery (Aldgate East) in the same day. Sadly the Pedley street station will close to become another ghost station as it will eventually relocate in Shoreditch High Street near the Tea building. If you ever wondered whatever happened to that charming Revival Cafe (and gallery) which was an oasis on Deptford High Street, (a place I spent many an afternoon in 1997 when I studied multimedia at Lewisham College, Deptford Campus) well the gallery part, Hales Gallery moved to the Tea building. It was a great loss for Deptford. So when I saw this article I was happy to see the orange tube connection beautifully treated in lush reportage.

Common Knowledge ?

2006-03-17T20:21:00.000Z

As the Remix Conference at Goldsmiths College fast approaches, a meeting which will celebrate the fruitful cooperation between various strata of grass roots activists, I thought I'd revisit the origin of this blog to explain to my readers a little bit more about my motivation. As a old Askean with multi generational roots in Bermondsey, Camberwell, Peckham, New Cross, Brockley, Blackheath, Downham, Catford and Forest Hill, I was raised on stories about local history of the last century. Instead of going to somewhere like Goldsmiths to study art (which I had considered), I ended up leaving Haberdashers Askes to study Interior Design (which included architecture) at London Guildhall, and then University of North London, which have since both merged together to form London Metropolitan. I was very fortunate to have tutors whose commitment to social responsibility in design led to my interest in urban regeneration. Interpreting local history as a natural resource like ecology, which needs to be understood and respected is still a highly controversial topic, but at least it is no longer being monopolized by single groups, although everyone has hijacked it at various points. Being a design and architecture geek I eagerly traversed Docklands during the time the LDDC was having a whale of a time with its special powers 'remixing history and landscapes' to create the beginnings of what would become Canary Wharf mega city. In my naivety I was blinded by the optimistic literature and shiny newness to the real stories about displacement, struggles and damage to industrial archeology. I didn't even know there was such a thing as industrial archeology ! I still cant get over the thought that the new Convoys Wharf development will build itself over the site of Deptford Naval Dockyard without a serious proactive plan to take intelligent stewardship of some of the worlds most prime archeology. Just preserving the visible fabric, and making 'historic features' of them is not the same as devising a scheme to access the archeology of the site and leverage it - as the asset it is for education and tourism. You only have to look at Surrey Quays to see what happens when you make a themed shopping mall, which they have since edited. But time marches on, and the Internet is with us now, millions connected by the speed of light. Perhaps I thought, one day the dots will be joined and new sophisticated partnerships will emerge between thinkers, do-ers and imagineers and so it is beginning. No longer is the university an ivory tower, no longer is local politics the preserve of an exclusive clique. But before we convert more libraries to an Idea Store, or get swamped by anything DoubleSpeakish, consider staying indoors, logging on and accessing the worlds largest library in your living room. Furthermore why not start a blog and make pages for that library ? When I started this, I had one key idea. Deptford was under represented on the web. There was paltry visibility of its sheer wealth of common cultural inheritance, finding basic stuff is (still) surprisingly difficult. When my friend Nick and myself first approached James Stevens of SPC about possibilities for a 'Hacklab' in Deptford he suggested I create a blog, an underwhelming idea at the time (as I expressed), but he was right, I apologise. The more I looked at the problem of local visibility on the web, the more I started to realise that I would have to blog. The idea for the Ragged School Blog was to have introduced team blogging for the users of the Ragged School building whilst we awaited its fate, to simply broadcast something - a 'presence' , and thereby create a small but informative case study of DIY digital hactivism however grundgy. Then to use that as a launchpad for connecting to other community groups who evidently needed plenty of encouragement to start using the web, not just surfing it. Well of course things never follow a neat linear path, but instead I met lots fabulous people. Then Goldsmiths built that new building with the scribble sculpture on top and the expansion of studying regeneration as sociology. That's when I knew things would take a different turn. Enter Liquid Culture and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Greenwich Planetarium and Disposable Heritage

2006-03-14T23:43:00.000Z

With the sad closure of The London Planetarium in Baker Street, the moment is perfect for the brand new Time Galleries at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. This is the first phase of an ambitious new program which will in turn be followed by a new planetarium in 2007. If anything, Greenwich continues to teach the world how to turn the accidents of history into an ongoing asset - Deptford could certainly learn a thing or two. So continuing to honour the late Ragged School in Hales street with a slow protest at its abandonment by both The Shaftesbury Society and Lewisham Planning department as disposable heritage, I have been tracking down other Victorian and industrial buildings saved and converted for good use. I went last week to the old Ragged School in Newport Street, Vauxhall and spoke there to David, who helped explain its conversion to the magnificent Beaconsfield. This gallery is a tour de force in sensitive, low impact conversion, leaving a flexible interior to meet the demands of an ever changing exhibition program, whilst preserving its intact architectural legacy. The current commission entitled 'Greenwich Degree Zero' by Rod Dickinson and Tom McCarthy imagines what would have happened in 1894 if the French anarchist Martial Bourdin had not accidentally blown himself up in Greenwich Park, but had instead set alight the Observatory. A mesmeric black and white film with ghostly relish shows the flames afoot whilst a Victorian gentlemen with top hat looks on. At Beaconsfield, the upper gallery has various documents about February 15th 1894, telegrams, diagrams, accoutrements and the various reportage about the true historical event. The smaller space on the ground level has an historical appraisal of Victorian anarchism to help us get a context around how the event took place more than a century ago. The show continues to the 30th April.

Deptford Pink - Dianthus armeria

2006-02-23T02:18:00.000Z

"there is a wilde creeping Pinke, which groweth in our pastures near about London..... but especially in the great fields next to Deptford, by the path as you go from Redriffe to Greenwich" ...Gerard's Herball of 1633

This plant is an endangered species and is protected, read here about how it is actually misnamed, and probably never actually grew in Deptford. Happily however, Chris Marshall did use the plant in DeptfordX 2001 on the side of Mumford Mill and the Laban building site. I have adopted the plant as the favicon for this blog.

Benjamin Franklin and Ferranti

2006-02-21T01:16:00.000Z

If you've done any research on electricity and found Deptford as the site of the seminal electric Power station in Britain, you might then be surprised to find it merely commemorated by the recently named Ferranti Park opposite the Laban. Whilst this gesture is great, why isn't there a significant memorial on the site by the river ? There stands instead a monument to Peter the Greats visit to the Naval Dockyard. And if you visit the site of Sayes Court to investigate that in turn, where is any clue that Sayes Court the house and its grand gardens existed ? The answer is because history is a very expensive commodity to present, or can be. Its one thing to have it documented, another to access the documents and another to fund the capital investment and servicing of an historical or cultural facility. Very rarely an historical building will survive, and even rarer an opportunity to bring it alive again. Benjamin Franklin, the man who used a kite to tap lightning in early research on electricity, lived in a house behind Trafalgar Square, near what is now Charing Cross station. The house has finally opened as a museum this month, for the first time enabling a combined visitor study facility with archive material of Franklins work catalogued by Yale university. Why is Lewisham one of the few boroughs not to have a local history museum yet ?

Architect David Adjaye in Deptford

2006-02-12T00:43:00.000Z

Similar gold dust boxes from Ghana, inspired David Adjaye to the shape and nature of The Stephen Lawrence Centre, which were just some of the nuggets on display at the Whitechapel Gallery.
The Current show of Adjayes work details one each of a particular object or pattern which is a key to every building. Each key is an African vernacular craft piece. The gold dust boxes, shown in the exhibition like two 'married buildings' mirror the two adjoined spaces Adjaye has linked with a bridge for the Stephen Lawrence Centre. The use of symbolism to denote various textures and nuances around heritage identity are studied and subtle. Is the reference to antique gold a cryptic nod to Deptfords complex naval history or just a coincidence ? Adjaye has also used a floor design which extends outwards from the building like a sunray tractor beam, pulling in students and mentors, based on a picture by Chris Ofili. The new centre, which if built by Brookmill Park, will be a centrepice of Deptfords pathfinding mission to reinvent iteself as a hotspot for creative industry. The building will accomodate the needs of an educational programme by the Stephen Lawrence Trust and provide the forward thinking needed for new and exciting learning scenarios. These will address the complete lifecycle of education, training and mentoring for young creative and business talent.

Deptford.tv launch March

2006-02-06T13:57:00.000Z

announcement for the launch of Deptford.TV on 03/03/06

Deptford.tv is an audio-visual documentation of the regeneration process of the Deptford area in collaboration with SPC.org media lab, Bitnik.org, the Boundless.coop, Liquid Culture and Goldsmiths College.

Since September 2005 we started assembling AV material around the regeneration process of the Deptford area, asking community members, video artist, film-makers, visual artists and students to contribute statements, feedbacks, critiques of the regeneration process of Deptford.
This rough material as well as edited media content will be made available on the Deptford.TV database and distributed over the boundless.coop wireless network an open content license such as the creative commons and the gnu general public license.

...http://deptfordtv.wordpress.com

'learn how to' - Save Ladywell Pool

2006-02-02T22:15:00.000Z

After learning to swim at Crystal Palace and Forest Hill Baths, I went on to swim at Ladywell with my primary school, and use Ladywell as a leisure pool thereafter. I am not really a keen sportsperson, and I don't like chlorine swimming baths, so I no longer swim - but when I pass Ladywell on the bus towards Catford I recognize what an important social hub Ladywell is.

Like anyone who keenly reads the local paper to follow the latest, I was originally stunned to see that it could be demolished.
I have just taken another look at Save Ladywell Pool and I must congratulate all who have created a showcase of positive community campaigning. I strongly urge all teachers, campaigners, heritage, ecology and community advocates to spend at least 20 minutes exploring the quality and depth of this website. Notice the care that has been taken to create appropriate weblinks to quoted documents and persons. Main topics are grouped with a clear menu. There is a discussion forum.

Whatever the fate of the pool, make sure that this outstanding civic resource can be appraised and modeled - to allow other awareness campaigns to flourish, and the local electorate a new participatory vehicle.

Christopher Marlowe Memorial Service

2006-01-30T23:12:00.000Z

This Saturday sees the annual Christopher Marlowe Memorial Service at St.Nicholas Church, 11am. Its a great chance for Marlowe fans and anyone interested in Deptfords history to gather in this extrordinary church, which has a small but awesome oak panel by Grinling Gibbons (showing his Vision of Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones).

What's up blog ?

2006-01-22T23:24:00.000Z

No matter how infrequent I post here, I never stop thinking about what a special and intriguing part of London Deptford is. So I've been going through literally several hundred pages which mention it to bring you at least 125 of the most relevant !!!

I've organized them so far courtesy of Del.icio.us, which if you don't already know is an interesting way to simply share bookmarks and find sites others have bookmarked. You can see what gems I've collected so far at del.icio.us/deptford which I think you will agree complements the wide spectrum of Deptford's heritage and cultural diversity.

My next step is to categorize them into common groups. But overall my aim is to help make a picture of what people perceive about Deptford through the web. I want to raise awareness of the impact a local community has on how it cultivates its presentation on the internet, to show that it can be proactively managed and used as force for everyone's benefit.

New Year, new outlook

2006-01-01T18:54:00.000Z

As much as it pains me, I know the thing most people want to know right now, is what will happen to the site of the demolished Ragged School/Princess Louise Institute. After umming and ahhhing about whether to link to MacDonaldEgan or not I decided to get closure on the issue in order to move forward. We have to accept that the building is now gone, another priceless historic document of Deptfords history vapourized. So here is what will be built on the site complete with its new moniker.......

see this page about it

The lesson we need to learn about such disapearing history comes from the simple observation that areas of historic and cultural importance arent automatically safe. The community around an important building may not be aware of its significance. Without a proactive plan to intrepret local history and ensure appropriate measures to safeguard it, ecomomic forces will consume its irreplaceable resources.

Remember to disorganize

2005-12-31T00:58:00.000Z

Just a quick visual reminder of the old bakery (in blue) at 227 Deptford High Street which once became "Use Your Loaf" and has been boarded up.

Although this particular venue is now not currently functioning as the creative social centre that it once was, it did at least partly inspire this blog. The Use Your Loaf collective relocated some activities to The Ragged School.
It seems a bit odd now to put up this picture, and many people familiar with what was The Ragged School (or Princess Louise Institute) in Hales Street must still be wondering how I am connected to it as you may have noticed I havnt explained so far.

Well, well, well, therby hangs a tale. And I wouldnt even start to tell you until I have composed myself. Frankly I dont know the half of it, and am still researching the details. And it is for that reason I have not updated this blog for so long, as I grieved the demolition of The Ragged School.

A blog insnt just a place to organise your thoughts, its also a place to disorganize them too !

Performancing

2005-12-30T22:33:00.000Z

Rather than give a long spiel as exactly why I havnt updated for a while I will instead start with two relevant items of interest to bloggers and DIY media hacktivists.

Number 1 is the new extension for Firefox called Performancing which I only dreamed of, a post to blog thingy which is simple and effective, please try it out. I am posting this with it right now. I was testing Flock which has such functionality built in, for which there are my comments on my main blog andreworford.com . My current observation as of this post, is how easier it was to use this extension to quickly edit or postscript a blog. (rather than, in this case - use blooger.com own webpage interface.)

Number 2 is finding out about SocialSource which is something Nick and myself were searching for during the inital research I carried out about the documentation of Free and open source projects being used by community groups. The scene in London is still very hidden to newbies, but anyone looking around to pick up some directional scent should check out the Hacklab in Rampart Street. Also Dorkbot which is a mix of hardware based hacktivism and reports on new projects like OpenStreetMap.

2005-07-28T00:00:00.000Z

Deptford High Street melons.

Boundless new home

2005-06-28T23:12:00.000Z

Deptfords innovative Boundless project has taken a step forward by establishing its first permanent space called Gifspace at Giffin Square. A former artist studio in the Giffin Business centre is now home to the Boundless project. The new space will enable a regular weekly drop in clinic for meshbox users to troubleshoot any problems. Having a real place to drop in will galvanize efforts to bring the project a new level of focus. At the first meeting in the space, members discussed how the current Boundless website was difficult, but that it reflected the complex and unique structure of people and ideas in evolution. Whilst a wireless mesh network provides a real useful purpose, its establishment as a Cooperative union has enabled a wider cultural and political debate about how technology led projects interact with various other power structures. The independance of the Boundless Coop enables a level of integrity - enough to define its own brief as a unique communitarian effort. We are all excited about developing its outreach and interface with other forward looking technology and community projects.

Greenwich + Docklands International Festival

2005-06-19T16:34:00.000Z

"Running from Saturday 25th June to Saturday 30th July, this year’s Festival sets sail with a powerful maritime spectacle in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich and ends with a fantasy ship sweeping through the streets of Bow. Why not jump on board? There will be some extraordinary experiences along the way; from breathtaking performances in the skies over Canary Wharf, to dancing JCB’s at Three Mills Green and a Catalan dragon on the streets of Woolwich. All events are free, expressing East London’s unique cultural vitality in dynamic new ways and promising an unforgettable voyage!" - festival website

Woolwich to Canary Wharf

2005-06-15T14:35:00.000Z

Work has finally started on the new £180 million link to Woolwich.

Venice Goes Mobile with Wi-Fi Walking Tours

2005-06-11T10:43:00.000Z

A collaboration between the Department of Urban Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Architecture Venice (IUAV), the project uses video-equipped cell phones, PDAs, and location-based technology to deliver multimedia walking tours of lesser-known Venetian neighborhoods. The mobile information system will not only provide visitors with a truer taste of the city, but also, organizers hope, create technology and content-production jobs for residents, luring them to stay.

Retail chains 'cloning' UK towns

2005-06-06T09:33:00.000Z

Britain's town centres are rapidly becoming indistinguishable, losing all sense of local identity as they are taken over by global and national chain stores, economists warned today.....The foundation also assessed 27 high streets across London and found 13 were clones, nine were home towns that retained their identity, and five were border towns. Wimbledon, Hammersmith and Clapham Junction were the most extreme of the clones, while Shepherd's Bush, Deptford and Bethnal Green scored highest for individuality.

source: The Guardian June 6th

Convoys Wharf go ahead

2005-06-04T10:16:00.000Z

Lewisham planning commitee has approved the masterplan by Richard Rogers Partnership which "includes 3,514 homes...There would be three tower blocks of 26, 32 and 40 storeys, a recycling facility, a boat repair yard and a river bus service."

Convoys sold to World's 22nd Richest Person

2005-05-23T00:14:00.000Z

News just in that Convoys Wharf is being sold by News International to Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing. The new owner is Hong Kongs richest man who is the world's largest operator of container terminals. Whether this bodes well for plans to create a "cruise liner terminal with allied marine businesses" is not yet clear as Lewisham Council's strategic planning committee will reveal on May 26.

Made In Deptford Festival

2005-05-10T16:19:00.000Z

"Between 20-22 May 2005 the historic area of Deptford in South East London will lay out its cultural and creative wares to make its mark on the London landscape. Participating venues include: The Albany Theatre, Laban, St Paul’s Church, St Nicholas Church, Evelyn Triangle, Cockpit Arts, Creekside Artists and local shops. Giffin Square will serve as the Epicentre." http://www.madeindeptford.com

Google SE8 style

2005-05-04T23:14:00.000Z

I have just created a search box [Search SE8 ] at the top right. Please try it and be as amazed as I must have been when I discovered it myself. Google has deployed its new mapping technology with a database of business addresses from Yell.com to create something Ive never seen before. In one stroke Google has illuminated the 'invisble' web of references to places in Deptford (which mainly have no websites themselves). This means that it is now easy to find accurate up to date contact details for nearly everything, filtered by place. This is about mapping information from two different sources to a third, an actual map. The two sources, Yellow Pages style listings and references to the same establishments (on web pages scattered across the net) have been cross referenced to draw on the power of both. The result is a context rich search which shows how such establishments are represented electronically when they have no website themselves. What can we learn from this about the future of the web and the choices the local community need to make about representing themselves using their own voices ?

postcript August 2006, have removed said serachbox from main page to preserve here.

The Debt Collection

2005-05-03T02:38:00.000Z

Just found/listened to this - "Made from an assortment of Deptford market junk and 50p charity shop tunes, fed into a dilapidated laptop, what has emerged are a bunch of uniquely beguiling, off kilter hangover classics. Now completed The Debt Collection is set to be release on April 18th 2005."

"Step children of South East London, The Shortwave Set herald the imminent arrival of their debut album, the Victorian Funk masterwork The Debt Collection, with the release of a highly covetable 10” only record at the start of April 2005. Featuring album tracks Is It Any Wonder, Figures of ’62 and In Your Debt, it will be available via all discerning record stores. It follow the release of their debut single, Slingshot, a rickety, clumsily cut up and put back together stroke of genius that inadvertently stumbled into the world some 18 months ago."

Blog Technology

2005-05-01T00:22:00.000Z

Recently Ive been discussing with my friend Nick about the world of blogging and podcasting and I commented that at first its like when you discover the web itself, theres no where to start or end. The blogosphere is an amamorphous tangle which is holographic. Most blogs contain quoted portions and comments to and from other blogs. If like a holgram a piece is shattered, its constituent parts are found scattered around reflecting the whole.

One Crucial entry point into the blogosphere is Technorati, which I have used to determine our first link from a fellow South London blogger. The Technorati search engine which frequently indexes blogs can be searched to see if a website you are on is being blogged about. So when you put in The Ragged School, here is what you get. Thanks Casino Avenue, this is a great example of how a geographical net or hub comes about. I hope this blog can be used as a demonstration medium to engage local community based projects in getting online savvy. With enough patience and determination perhaps a future DeptfordX festival could expand into digital media and put Deptford in the spotlight as a vibrant convergance zone for geomedia innovation. I have in mind the London Free Map which is pioneering a free of copyright, free to use map data, which in turn others can exploit to create cool online gadgetry like perhaps making your phone beep a certain way when you pass a site in Deptford which has a website, blog or realtime stream of data. The point is not about cool stuff, but generating excitement about the way one persons approach can help another, and how oppurtunities for ecology, economy, community and education are expanding as activists working in the digital create a synergy with people working on the ground in the locale.

Boundless antenna

2005-04-28T19:10:00.000Z

I have been holding back posting for a while until the Ragged School gets reconnected to the internet with the Boundless network which needs a 20ft pole. I wanted to pause and reflect on the nature of this blog. I am only the first blogger to get posting to this site before other users and friends of the school start. I thought I'd start it as I did, to create a sense of place. I hope most will be made of the cross pollination between freestyle community projects, creative self resourcing and online action.

History in the wwwrubble

2005-04-18T22:50:00.000Z

I can never get over the fact that buildings (like this Ragged School) are threatened with demolition and that with so much going on in the world, its hard to go on about it when so much else needs fixing. I think the saddest part of a demolition is the last few days when its remaining contents are also going to be mixed into the rubble which will be sent to landfill. There was a BBC series called The Reclaimers which showed architectural salvage crews getting sometimes just 24 hrs to remove valuable interior fittings at low or no cost. Usually they had been contacted by the demolition contractors who were at liberty to dispose of any valuable assets in this random and roughshod offer. If you didnt get that art deco ceiling, its dust by dawn. Then I came across this striking webpage about a very similar situation concerning saving documents - valuable to historians at the late Deptford Power Station. The site is now a 'luxury' apartment block. There is no memorial outside to Sebastian de Ferranti and the Worlds first high voltage generation station, although the new park opposite the Laban has been named Ferranti Park as a result of a competition to find a name. Interestingly there is a statue of Peter The Great and his dwarf commemorating his visit to the Naval Dockyard and Sayes Court, but it displaces a suitable monument to Ferranti and the power station workers.

Locative Media

2005-04-16T23:25:00.000Z

One of the most notable features of Deptford is that its history is mostly invisible. Of course there are some lovely buildings left, but only a very few. What was not bombed in the war is under threat from modern day development. My favourite is the Shipwrights Palace, which I will be posting about in the future. Until they get a website proper here is one of the few pages about it on the net, an "expired" page which has been archived using the indispensible Way Back Machine. I find the treasure hunt of tracking down information on the net can sometimes be more like an archeology trip or a ghost hunt. If we could actually walk around Deptford with a locative aware device, what sort of information could be stored and shared ? So called Locative Media is becoming a serious discipline in its own right. I hope that one of the features of this blog will be the chance to become a hub for the many cross disciplinary artists who are currently investigating the subject. Whilst combing the google results for Deptford, I found this interesting project which looks at subverting the traditional guided tour by involving the users in its creation.

Media For All - ICT suite and TV studio

2005-04-15T15:29:00.000Z

"Media for All is a TV training centre located in a Peabody Trust community centre surrounded by community housing. They have only recently opened their training facility which consists of sound studios, ICT suite and television studio that will service Hackney, Westminster and Lewisham borough commuunity TV training projects and central resource for a range of cultural and minority programme makers. they have a mobile broadcast unit and close relationships with the Albany Theatre."

Photos of Deptford

2005-04-13T12:13:00.000Z

Found this on Flickr which is a photoblogging system using tags to organise categories. The photos were uploaded by different people and show off a system which makes it easier for someone looking for (or depositing) information about Deptford. I hope we can use this blog here to explore how such systems can be exploited by the various projects in Deptford to congeal a sense of locality through this online medium.

Thankyou and history part 1

2005-04-12T23:59:00.000Z

Before we start posting in earnest, a big shout out to Transpontine and Casino Avenue whose South East London blogging has lifted my spirits and encouraged me to establish The Ragged School Blog here. I read your blogs on and off and its been a great morale boost to see SE London, especially Deptford represented with lively interest. Also thankyou to everyone who spoke to me informally across Deptford about the local scene and got me up to speed about community issues, history and so on. In a future post I will review my findings and relate the story how my friend Nick and Myself became interested in Deptford after finding out about Hacklab and wanted to see if we could create a 'mobile hacklab' in Deptford. We approached James Stevens of Deckspace with our first thoughts and he directed us to the now defunct Use your Loaf and has been a great source of help. Little is represented online about The Ragged School which was once called The Princess Louise Institute. Here is an old page which I did find using the old name for the building. The day I discovered the building, door wide open, I walked in off the street and spoke to the then resident Mark Pavey of the Open Arts Platform (who have since relocated to The Seager Distillery). We spoke about the buildings uncertain future, and thats when I made my mind up to start the Hacklab idea by briefing the users of the Ragged School about a possible intervention using communications technology. We had already seen how Borthwick wharf was threatened with demolition and how the community was slow to mobilize (as details about planning applications and knowledge of whats at stake for the community cannot be campained on by just the small handfulls of dedicated and knowledgable individuals that do exist - they need our help, your help !) We need to support those active in the community to create grass roots awareness about the remaining tangible fragments of Deptford astonishing Social History (like this Ragged School), and empower ourselves to prevent opportunities being missed, history destroyed. I personally would like to establish and early warning system to alert the community to any heritage/ecology or social inclusion 'events' which need to be looked at not just by the council, but all the community. My positive experience with Boundless spurred me on, especially seeing the Internet connection at the Ragged School, a true example of how the wireless community infastructure can open up opportunities. Users of The Ragged School in situ will use the Boundless link to update this blog.

Welcome

2005-04-12T21:00:00.000Z

Its time to get The Ragged School in Deptford a place on the net and create an exciting social experiment to demonstrate how the local community can use technology to make things happen. My name is Andrew Orford and Im going to help show how any community based organisation whith a low budget can get the most out of the Internet as an outreach tool. I hope this specific blog will demonstrate team blogging as a method to interact with other South East London bloggers and organisations. Please link to the main page as soon as possible to help other people searching online for Deptford to discover this 'hub'. We will be delivering community based news and narrating the technology enabling of Deptford. People who use the The Ragged School will also be able to advertise what is going on. Deptford has an exciting cluster of innovative social and creative projects which we will report on.