Calling all volunteers! Wandle Treasure Hunt - join our local heritage project

Join us to discover how you can help us in our search for the River Wandle’s lost treasure !

Volunteers for our Wandle Treasure Hunt are invited to attend one or all of the following events
- please RSVP

11am Wednesday 26 November
Wandsworth Heritage Centre, 265 Lavender Hill SW11 1JB
 
11am Wednesday 3 December
Merton Local Studies Centre, Morden Library, SM4 5DX
 
2-4pm Wednesday 10 December 
Croydon Archives, Croydon Clocktower, Katharine Street, CR9 1ET

2-4pm Wednesday 17 December Sutton Local Studies & Archives Centre
Central Library, St Nicholas Way Sutton, Surrey SM1 1EA

If you’d like to attend one of these events please get in touch: 
mail@buildingexploratory.org.uk
Tel: 020 7608 0775

A trip to Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, Kings Cross

On Wednesday 5th November the Islington History & Architecture Group visited Central Saint Martin's College of Art & Design in Kings Cross, accompanied by Aiden McMahon, the project architect from Stanton Williams and Linda Florence, Senior Lecturer at the college.

The group was captivated and inspired by the experience and it was wonderful to see such a building in full swing! 

The group really enjoyed Project Architect Aiden McMahon’s insights and explanations – helping to understand the building from an architect’s perspective and make sense of how the new building fits in with the old.

It was wonderful for us to see the building from Linda’s perspective: we visited the weavers, a screen printing workshop and the main 'street' space at the heart of the building. The building design allowed the group to see the building in action – looking down from above at the potters and jewellery makers: ancient crafts in a modern environment.
 

We also loved exploring the library – set in the historic granary building.

Senior BEEs - Heritage at Risk - Clapton Pond

Heritage at risk was the theme of the latest Senior BEE session when they met with Rebecca Barrett from English Heritage.

We invited Rebecca to talk to the group about the Heritage at Risk register – a database of neglected and decaying listed buildings and historic sites which is released every year by English Heritage (and has just been updated).

Rebecca explained how the register works, shared recent success stories and focused on some local examples of buildings at risk at Clapton Pond – where Pond House has come off the register but its neighbour the Bishopswood Almshouses have been added.

After the talk the Senior BEEs went over to Clapton Pond to take a closer look at the buildings, reinforcing Rebecca’s message that you don’t have to look far to find heritage at risk.

City & Hackney Older People's Reference Group Annual Event

On Tuesday this week Karen Elmes (lifelong learning officer) and Caf Fean (administrator) joined a number of other organisations at the City & Hackney Older People's Reference Group fourteenth Annual Event to talk to older people in Hackney, and tell them about what we do and how to get involved in the Senior BEEs programme.

A talk was given by Cllr Jonathan McShane, Cabinet Member for Health & Social Care, Rebecca Clarkson of Connect Hackney, Genette Laws and Stephen Lowe of Age UK.

We caught up with a number of Senior BEEs, old and new, and the issue of mobility and access to cultural, heritage and architectural sites and places of interest was raised by quite a few visitors to our stall.

Our thanks to David Holland and his team for having us there on the day.

Update - Islington History & Architecture Group - Golden Lane Estate Walk

 
On Wednesday 22 October the Islington History and Architecture Group were given an insider’s perspective of the Golden Lane Estate during a tour led by urban designer and Golden Lane resident Fiona Davies. 

Fiona’s tour took the group all around the estate and into a couple of the flats which gave a taste of what it’s like to live there and they loved it. 

It was an eye opening tour which helped the group understand what makes the Golden Lane Estate so special – the thoughtfulness and attention to detail, the mix of housing types, the shops and community facilities, the clever use of space, the playful public spaces. 

The group were thoroughly inspired by experiencing design which has stood the test of time.

This is East 20!

Two years on from the Olympics, the Queen Elizabeth Park is being handed back to its local community, and, excitingly, to fifty local teenage cartographers.

The twelve year olds are all Year 8 students at Chobham Academy, the new school within the Athletes Village – now East 20 Village.

 

Together with The Building Exploratory, LivingMaps and LLDC, they are creating a map to share what the Olympic Park has to offer other young people, and their hopes for its future.

In this first workshop of six for this term, Phil Cohen of Living Maps broadened everyone’s horizons to the incredible scope of mapping. In return the teenagers opened our eyes to a young person’s perspective of living in this corner of London: They drew fifty maps of the local area drawn from memory. No easy feat, but what they produced is fascinatingly insightful.

A taster of the memory maps: Friends, food and fashion feature highly!

Taking in a high rise panorama of the Olympic Park from the roof of the school.

We-hey come to Apple Day this Sunday 5th October!

We will be popping up at Roots and Shoots' Apple Day this Sunday, 5th October, to ask you your views on Durning Library, its services and how it can link with local people's needs and aspirations. Come down and join in the fun, £1 for adults and free for children!

Event details:

Sunday 5th October
11am - 4pm
Roots and Shoots, Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth SE11 6DN