literally Marylebone

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026Leave a comment

I walked over from Fitzrovia to Marylebone. London is just a big collection of villages they say, I mean they are quite big villages with lots of big expensive buildings. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of cliches about London. That said, I lied exploring this part of town, which I don’t really ever come to. In the case of Marylebone High Street, I don’t remember ever coming here. I must have when I was young, I remember doing a job at a big upstairs-downstairs type house around here, when I was a waiter in my teens, serving tea and sandwiches, but I didn’t explore the area. So finally in 2025 I decided to wander through, do some sketching, and visit Daunt Books. I’d seen pictures of the place, and of course those little bags everyone likes that have the drawing of the bookshop on it. I was asked once by another bookshop here in California if I could do a drawing for a similar bag ‘just like the Daunt Books one in London’ but I didn’t have time to do that. I made sure to pick up one of these famous bags (they aren’t cheap, I got a small one for my book purchases that day). I didn’t realize it’s primarily a travel bookshop, but carries all sorts of other books and literature as well, but everything was organized by geographical location. Not just the guidebooks and phrasebooks, you would expect that, but novels too. I was looking in the Berlin section, ahead of my trip there, and all the novels that were set in Berlin were to be found there. I liked that a lot, it made more sense. It was a big store to explore, but a bit of a squeeze upstairs. I sketched it from across the street, and added only the green which made a lot of sense. That woman entering the shop probably wasn’t wearing the same green as the lamps, but maybe she was. Maybe she didn’t exist and I just needed to draw a generic person walking into the bookshop. It was busy, Saturday afternoon in Marylebone, lots of shoppers out, people standing outside the pubs, and expensive cars pulling up and people in expensive clothes with expensive haircuts speaking expensive languages, it’s quite an upmarket village. Yet it still felt like an active neighbourhood, and there were little places of calm. I went up to Paddington Street Gardens South, a little park in the middle of Marylebone, and sat for a while in the calm under the trees.

I walked over to the Monocle Cafe, I wanted to sketch it since I saw another artist I follow (whose name escapes me now) do a really nice drawing of it several years ago. Also, I have a friend (who I haven;t seen for years) who has worked at Monocle, the magazine, since it first launched almost twenty years ago now. I still have somewhere the first edition that he mailed over to me. It’s a really good magazine, focusing on culture and travel and all sorts of stuff, but admittedly not one I read regularly, it’s quite big and I don’t buy magazines as often as I used to (except the occasional history or football magazine which I get from Newsbeat, and sometimes the one about ukuleles). They would always end up piling up around the house, not wanting to throw them away until I’d read all of it, which I never did. I still buy magazines more than most people I know though, and almost always British magazines (American magazines are terrible, they weigh a ton, there are far too many advertisements, and finding the actual articles is like trying to solve an escape room). This is a nice little cafe, tucked away on the quiet Chiltern Street. They have other cafes in cities like Zurich, Paris, Hong Kong, as well as shops, all connected to the magazine. This one is very pretty and sketchable though, but it being the end of the day, I kept it pretty simple, as I had to get the tube home. One of the staff came over to check out the sketch and offered me a drink, but I had to go soon. Some ladies from the middle east were very excited to see the sketch and I think they wanted to be in it, but I just let them pretend one of them were the figures inside (they weren’t) and they took photos. I was pretty tired though, and this was all I had left in me to sketch (I’d already drawn two pubs, one bookshop, the BT Tower and had three beers since Hampstead, it was time to go home for dinner). I saw all sorts of other places I’d like to sketch or explore around here, such as Marylebone Lane, and even Baker Street underground station so will be coming back at some point, when I’m next in London.

the king and queen of fitzrovia

January 21, 2026January 20, 2026Leave a comment

I went for a walk around an area I don’t visit often, Fitzrovia. This is the area of London to the west of Gower Street, south of the Euston Road, east of Great Portland Street, north of Oxford Street. I got out at Warren Street and walked down that way to Cleveland Street. It’s a quieter area than you’d expect on a Saturday afternoon in central London, full of surprises. London is full of surprises. I walked down Cleveland Street and sketched one of my favourite buildings in London, the BT Tower, and then walked further and sketched the King and Queen pub, on the corner of Foley Street. I had heard about this pub, being famous as the place where Bob Dylan first played in London, and they do mention this in a few places around the pub, but I was pleasantly surprised to find this was not some tourist trap full of Bob Dylan fans, but just a normal looking proper pub with locals and good beer. They even had a Southern Comfort mirror on the wall, proper old pub style, exactly the same one we used to have on our dining room wall when I was a kid (very likely from a pub). It was quiet around here, no traffic rushing by, hardly any of those bloody delivery cyclists cutting corners and red lights, and after I had sat across the street drawing I popped in for a couple of pints. This sketch took me a bit longer than I wanted, I was getting a bit bogged down with details, but I enjoyed sitting in the pub listening to the chat and the football results (Spurs won). Proper pub. These are a dying breed in this city. I was reluctant to leave, but I had some more wandering and sketching to do before I went home.

Here is my first sketch, which I drew while sitting on a wall outside the George and Dragon pub. By the way, look at that bumpy paper the watercolour Moleskine now has, I don’t like it. I prefer the Hahnemuhle I used in the other sketch. I love this building though, poking out above those old rooftops. It’s been the BT Tower (or Telecom Tower) all of my life, though when I was a kid it was still called the Post Office Tower by older Londoners so that’s how I first knew it. I always like that it looked like a lightsabre, but also it was visible from so many places, being all up on its own and very unique in the London skyline, a bit like the Fernsehturm of Berlin. The top featured a revolving restaurant, so you could never complain about the view. BT Tower is located at [REDACTED]. Ah, yeah I forgot, it’s a secret. Yes I know you can see it, but like a rainbow, you aren’t supposed to know where the base is. This is genuine, it was designated as an official secret back in the 1970s, and was referred to by a judge as “Location 23”. This is presumably due to its importance in national communications during times of emergency, this was the Cold War after all. Apparently the tower was recently sold by BT to an American hotel company who will turn it into a luxury hotel, hopefully restoring the revolving restaurant. They will have to find it first.

oxford’s treats

January 20, 2026January 20, 2026Leave a comment

I went to Oxford with my Mum, a city I’d not been to in years. It’s been on my to-sketch list for some time. We stayed at the Randolph Hotel in the city centre, which is where Colin Dexter wrote the Inspector Morse books, in the hotel bar. That bar is called the Morse Bar now, and the drinks all have Morse-themed names, pictures of John Thaw are all over the walls. I’ll tell you, before that trip I didn’t know who Colin Dexter was, and while of course I knew the Inspector Morse TV show (it’s really famous after all), I didn’t used to watch it, and can’t remember what the famous theme tune was. I know it was set in Oxford, and that his partner was that guy who played Neville in Auf Wiedersehen Pet. So I picked up a copy of the first Morse book from Blackstones (who had a first edition of the book, Last Bus To Woodstock, behind the counter) with the intention of reading it in that bar over a fancy drink, but I didn’t actually start reading it until after I got back to the US (I was still reading an Agatha Christie book, Lord Edgware Dies, and I’m a very slow reader). The book was pretty good, I didn’t feel like reading more in the series just yet. I did get out and draw before dinner, sketching the timber-framed buildings on Cornmarket. It was pretty busy in Oxford, this is a tourist centre, lot of people about. I saw a nearly-fight between one drunk guy and a busker, I think the drunk guy knew the busker because he kept calling him specific names. I had a conversation with one bloke who was really interested in learning how to draw and was asking me for advice, hopefully I gave good advice. Hopefully I was following it myself. I think the building I drew is actually a hat shop. This was page 1 (or spread 1) of a new sketchbook, the portrait format Hahnemuhle watercolour book. I really like their paper.

This is one of the most famous sites in Oxford, the Radcliffe Camera. I got up early to go and sketch it before the crowds came, and had a really nice view in some warm morning light. That iconic stone you see all over Oxford, which is called Headington stone, exudes a warm and highly academic feel. The amount of clever that has seeped into these stones over the years has probably supercharged it with particles of extreme knowledge. If you put your ear up to the walls you can just about hear the theme tune to University Challenge. Radcliffe Camera is a big circular library, and the building was completed in 1748. It’s not open to the public, but I saw quite a few academics going in. I believe it is part of the Bodleian Libraries; we had wanted to do a your of the Bodleian, but couldn’t get a reservation. It looked pretty incredible. I love libraries, I mean I know people all say that, but there are a lot of people who seem to hate them and apparently want them gone. I love public libraries, but I love a university library and spent so much of my twenties in them; I miss that quiet, spending all day hidden away there researching. I wonder if I would have done well if I had been a student at Oxford, or Cambridge, or Oxbridge wherever that is. I don’t know. I like to think I would have, but then I get bored with the mandatory training videos at work and I spend a month reading an Agatha Christie novel and I wonder if I ever really did have the mind for serious academia. Who knows. If life had taken a different path maybe I would be organizing ‘Let’s Draw Oxford’ sketchcrawls around the old cobbled paths. I still ended up working for a university in a college town full of bikes. As I sketched the Radcliffe Camera, morning tour groups were already passing by telling their stories to American and Chinese tourists. Radcliffe Square and its Camera are named after the 17th century physician and MP John Radcliffe, who treated King George III, and whose money helped found the library after his death. It sits in between Brasenose College and All Souls College. Just around the corner from there crossing over New College Lane is another of Oxford’s most famous sights, the Bridge of Sighs, which I sketched below (much more quickly in pencil and paint, while walking around the area with my Mum). Unlike the similarly named bridge in Venice this one does not go over a canal. Cambridge has a Bridge of Sighs too, and that one goes over the river Cam. The proper name of this one is Hertford Bridge (being connected to Hertford College).

I could spend weeks sketching around Oxford. When I retire, if my eyes and hands still work by then, maybe that’s what I’ll do. I bought a really good book of Oxford drawings at the second hand bookshop in Davis which I read to give me inspiration, and I’ve seen a lot of travelling urban sketchers drawing these same buildings and giving workshops there. It’s an attractive city. I think if we lived in England again it’s a city I’d want to live in, although I do have a soft spot for Cambridge. On the drive in, we passed through one suburb of Oxford and I saw out of the corner of my eye that house with the big metal shark sticking out of the roof. I didn’t draw it, but having seen it only online I was so excited to see it in person.

Here is a sketch of another interesting detail, the Tumnus doorway. I don’t know if it is actually called that, but that’s what it is, a big wooden door with two gilded fauns holding up the awnings around it. The fauns look exactly as you imagine Mr Tumnus from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and of course CS Lewis was a professor here in Oxford (and used to meet regularly with JRR Tolkien at the Eagle and Child, which currently is not open). This used to be the City Arms pub in centuries past, closing in 1881, and the building is now part of Brasenose College. On the wooden door is the face of a lion. Now I don’t know if Lewis saw these and thought, yeah I’ll have that, but it might have been an inspiration for him, maybe passing up here on a snowy evening lit by gaslamp. I loved that story, and adapted it for the stage when I was in France decades ago.

Now these last two sketches are quick ones I drew while exploring the Ashmolean Museum, across the street form our hotel. The big head above is about 2000 years old, probably the head of Apollo (the Greek god, not the boxer from Rocky). The smaller head below is a lot older, the skull of Homo Georgicus, about 1.8 million years old and found in Georgia (the country in the Caucasus, not the state in the deep South). As I drew it I couldn’t get the voice of George from Rainbow out of my mind, imagining the skull talking with that voice, “Oh Geoffrey, Zippy has been so naughty”. I really enjoyed the Ashmolean Museum, but we didn’t stay too long. It was a brief visit to Oxford, and I’d like to go back some time. We did stop off at the Trout Inn, a beautiful pub by the river Thames just outside Oxford, which I knew from the Philip Pullman books (specifically La Belle Sauvage, it’s where the main character of that book, Malcolm, lives with his parents). If I ever go back to Oxford I’d like to go back there for lunch.

The Theatre of the Thames

January 19, 2026January 19, 2026Leave a comment

More from last August in London. It was a lovely day down by the Thames, one of those perfect weather days, not too hot, nice river breeze, sunshine with a few wispy clouds. We were going to have a family day out down here, watch some theatre, eat some dinner, walk down the river. I came down a little early to get some sketching in, and drew the view over to St. Paul’s and the City. That skyline has changed so much since I left 20 years ago. I had bought tickets for The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, in the seated areas rather than standing in the groundling spots, and I got the comfy cushion too. Those seats are a lot more than the standing sections, but I thought, well it’s important to support the London theatre scene. I did donate to the Globe during the pandemic when they were closed, they were posting full performances online and they were fantastic. To my shame I had never been to see a play at the Globe, in all those years since it opened. I’ve been to the gift shop loads of times. I remember when the Globe opened, as I was a drama student at Queen Mary at the time, and I wondered if it would get confusing that there is another theatre called The Globe down by Shaftesbury Avenue (that was subsequently renamed The Gielgud). Our ‘Places In Performance’ class taught by Richard Schoch (he is a published Shakespeare expert; he also recently wrote a very well-received book about Sondheim) did a tour of the new Globe, and some of the faculty at Queen Mary were part of the Friends of the Globe. I remember trying to walk there from north of the River and thinking, we could really use another bridge here you know, a pedestrian bridge nearby to St. Paul’s; a couple of years later we got the Millennium Bridge. I remember the tour, learning about Sam Wanamaker, the American actor (and Zoë Wanamaker’s father) who was the driving force behind the idea to rebuild the Globe right here in Southwark, but who did not live to see it finished. Yet in the twenty-seven years since my visit, I never ever saw a play there, until now!

I selected our seats carefully, considering how the sun might move in this afternoon play, but obviously I completely miscalculated that because for the first half we were baking in the sun. Note to self, evening performances next time! It was great though, the performances were fun, I couldn’t tell if everyone was really following it but the costumes and physical humour was top notch. I did try a quick sketch before the show started (above) but didn’t draw during the show. I would like to do a proper sketch of the Globe’s interior some day, I’ve drawn the outside as few times.

This was not the only theatre I saw while I was back – I booked tickets to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on Drury Lane, a stage adaptation of one of our favourite animated Miyazaki films. It was without doubt one of the best things I have ever seen, so good that I immediately booked tickets to see it again when I got home. It was that good, especially how all the live music was performed. Looking at the program I realized that the director was Phelim McDermott, who co-founded Improbable Theatre Co, and I’d forgotten that name until that moment. I had seen his production of Shockheaded Peter many years ago at the Battersea Arts Centre, in about 2000 or 2001, and it erupted my imagination; some of the style of Totoro rang a bell with me. There were some elements of my own production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in Aix-en-Provence in 2002 that were definitely inspired by that show. As a former drama student I don’t actually go to the theatre very much at all, so to go several times in one trip felt like making up for lost time. I even bought cheap five quid groundling tickets for Twelfth Night at the Globe a couple of weeks later, after my trip to Poland and Berlin, but ended up going sketching instead. I must go and see some more theatre though, and make more of an effort to see more in London.

Sometimes the best theatre is out on the streets though eh. Ooh, cheesy and not actually true. No, the streets is not the same as the theatre which takes a lot of effort in writing, acting, costumes, lighting, front of house; no, just standing on the streets and looking at things is not the same. The view above is quite a theatrical backdrop though. But nevertheless I do just that, I like to fill the sketchbooks with the stories of the world I see, and that is all my own story, my own theatre. I have often thought about the interaction between theatre/performance and urban sketching. As urban sketchers we ourselves might not see ourselves as performers but in a real sense we are. The act of standing on a street and observing makes us the ‘watched by C’ part of the Peter Brook equation of “A plays B watched by C” (that’s a very rough and probably inaccurate summarizing of his ‘Empty Space’ idea but I learned this in the first term of my drama degree, and that was in 1997 and I barely understood anything about theatre then, and probably even less now, but this ideas we discussed stuck with me, that everything can be boiled down to performance in some way). If I decide to observe and describe the scene in my sketchbook, I then become both observer (C) and performer (A), while the scene I am sketching becomes (B), the thing I am performing. I am starting to see why we drank so much at university now. That confusing calculus aside, the urban sketcher themself becomes a performer and attracts observation from people passing by, or sketched by other sketchers (A performs B watched by C who becomes A making the original A become B who is also performing another B which is also A; I’m surprised I didn’t get a D for that class). So we urban sketchers are performing in the act of drawing, and also in the act of sharing online with our fellow sketchers, who are the audience who then hopefully become inspired to keep sketching themselves. The thing I think about most though is that urban sketching, perhaps unlike more fine art styles, is an accessible art form that people feel more of a connection to when they see it. This is the everyday world as seen by the people living in it, who draw it because it’s there with the tools they have. I was always more interested in the basic idea of theatre as a storytelling device, one that anyone can take part in. I appreciate amazing acting, and the incredible hard work that goes into it, but it never interested me personally as much as the storytelling itself. We learned about interactive and forum theatre and the work of Boal, and I was very interested in Brecht. I look through the hundreds of posts each day that my fellow urban sketchers across the world are posting (that is, as much as the dreaded algorithms allow), and in very small and very big ways we are telling the story of the world we live in. It’s not necessarily in big determined narratives or five act structured entertainments but it’s all theatre of a sort, storytelling is at the heart of it, even if you don’t realize you are telling a story. I think a lot about this and try to get this small idea across in the sketchcrawls I organize. As with the interactive theatre work we did it’s all about accessibility and inclusiveness (in those first sketching events I ran, I brought along extra art materials and mini sketchbooks for people who saw us and might want to start sketching themselves) and what tools you have to tell your story with, that’s how I approach urban sketching. Or maybe, as with so many things with me, it’s just another excuse to draw.

The scene above, of the 2025 version of the City of London skyline, was drawn before the sun started setting, stood by Hay’s Galleria while people around me enjoyed an evening pint by the Thames. That skyline has changed so much in the 20 years since I left my home city, it’s unrecognizable. After this, my wife and I decided to walk down the Thames, and we walked and walked all the way to Charing Cross Station, for some reason. It was a really long way, and the South Bank was busy, really busy. London’s great, the Thames is my favourite, but it can be long and exhausting, just like some Shakespeare. Or some blog posts.

Richmond, by the river

January 17, 2026January 16, 2026Leave a comment

We met up with my friend Simon who was back visiting from Dublin, and took the Overground train down to Richmond. I was there last in the previous winter with Simon exploring the old pus and riverside walks, and wanted to go back in the summertime with the family. Richmond is London, but I hardly ever go there, it’s quite far but always worth a visit. I drew the White Cross pub, above, which we never went into but I know if it from videos I’ve seen online, apparently when the river tides get a bit high it cuts off the exits, and they lend you wellington boots to wade through to higher ground. I’d probably just stay in the pub. There are a lot of ducks around here, not surprising really. We had a nice refreshing drink at the cafe on one of the boats floating on the Thames. It didn’t go anywhere, but it was nice to sit and catch up. I sketched Simon (below; I was worried I was making him look like Pep Guardiola or Enzo Maresca, but it looked more like him this time, I always struggle sketching him for some reason). I was starting my new small Stillman & Birn brown paper sketchbook which would be my ‘people sketching’ book for this trip, and indeed I would get a lot of use from it in Poland at the symposium, Simon was a good page 1 subject. Some ladies were watching me sketch and asked if I could draw them, I respectfully declined (as they weren’t all that respectful themselves).

I tried to draw Richmond Bridge while sat on the boat but only got as far as outlines, I ended up finishing the rest off later on. The bridge dates from the 18th century.

On the train back into central London I sketched a little more in that brown book, this time using some interesting Derwent ‘Inktense’ paints I had picked up, fun to test those out, I don’t think I’ve used them since. I drew my wife, and also drew Simon again looking very different this time. Outside, it started raining, and got very heavy by the time we reached central London. Nothing more English than a mid-August downpour.

at the holly bush, hampstead

January 16, 2026Leave a comment

I should probably have included this in the last post about Hampstead but I didn’t, and it was drawn on a different day. A short but steep walk up Holly Hill from the tube station is the Holly Bush pub, tucked away in a narrow lane called Holly Mount. It’s a holly good pub too. This is definitely in ‘cute American-targeted movie set in Hampstead’ territory, and ‘random celebrity sighting’ land, but I like that it’s a little bit hidden and takes an effort to get to. I’ve wanted to sketch here for a while (I should draw the inside sometime) so one Saturday I was heading into London when I stopped off in Hampstead to buy some art supplies at Cass, sketch the Holly Bush, then met up with my friend who happened to be having lunch nearby with his girlfriend, we had a pint and a chat here. I used to enjoy spending the odd Saturday lunchtime down this way, another mate of mine used to live down here when I was in my twenties, though we would like going to the Haverstock down in Belsize Park, when the football was on. I miss this about London, even though it’s always so busy and crowded and expensive there are little places of relative calm and charm, and a Saturday afternoon pint and chat in an old pub can be so totally relaxing. After I left my friends I got back on the tube and headed into central London to explore some other areas, I’ll post those later. The Holly Bush is a Fullers pub which means they do London Pride, I always liked that beer, room temperature, nothing fancy. I got it once at a British themed pub in California and it was served cold, which was very odd (but tasted fine). As I sketched outside, a family of Americans all decked out in Tottenham Hotspur gear started to talk with me, they were getting ready to head over to N17 to watch Spurs play, which made me quite jealous as I wish I’d done that too (but couldn’t get a ticket). This was the day we beat Burnley 3-0 in an early season romp where we all thought, oh yes life will be very good under Thomas Frank, this season is going to be entertaining and full of wins. Spoiler alert: yeah not so much.

an afternoon in hampstead

January 13, 2026January 12, 2026Leave a comment

From Hemel Hemstead to regular old Hampstead, a place I’m a lot more familiar with. It was a nice summery day, and we went a few stops down the old Northern Line to look around. I did a quick sketch of Heath Street looking uphill past the tube station. These quick pen sketches while I’m waiting for people are often my favourite types, getting as much in as quickly as I can in a busy city. I love taking my time but dashing with a fountain pen is very liberating. I picked up a new book in Primrose Hill this summer by the artist David Gentleman called ‘Lessons for Young Artists’, a signed copy full of simple but powerful advice. I know, I know I’m not a ‘Young Artist’, but hey I’m significantly younger than David Gentleman so comparatively I still qualify. I’m a huge fan of David Gentleman; his book ‘London You’re Beautiful has pride of place on my shelf, and I look through it more than most books. I don’t often draw in a looser sketching style like he does, but when I do it feels like I’ve caught a bit more of how I really see London. It’s not static or linear, but organic and full of often incompatible personalities. London annoys me, but I can’t get enough of it, I don’t live there any more but my head is always in its space. The tree below, a huge London Plane in the shaded backstreet of Oriel Place is one of my favourite trees in London. We sat for a while eating our crepes, I did a quick sketch.

We walked down to St. John-at-Hampstead church down Church Row, looked about for a bit, then I stayed down and did some sketching, drawing the tall house next to the graveyard that comes right out of an old novel. This street has had a lot of celebrated residents. H.G. Wells (he of the Time Machine) lived at number 17; Giles Gilbert Scott (he of the red phone box) lived number 26. Peter Cook also lived at number 17 in the 1960s, and would write here with Dudley Moore, as well as hosting parties. Famous scientist Henry Cavendish lived at number 34; he discovered Hydrogen, though he called it ‘inflammable air’ (he got that right). The most well-known resident of number 12, which I drew, was a 19th century Christian Socialist called Edward Vansittart-Neale, who opened the first co-op store in London. Everybody needs good neighbours. It’s very picture-book Hampstead around here, the sort of place a main character walks down in a soppy movie before bumping into a rich American out walking a small dog and spilling their big coffee before opening a small antiques shop or bookstore and we’ve all seen those films. It’s nice down here though. I drew the graveyard a couple of years ago.

st.mary’s in hemel

January 12, 20261 Comment

This is St. Mary’s Church in Hemel Hempstead, which is a town in Hertfordshire outside of London which I had never been to before. I was up in Stevenage at my younger sister’s, and was planning to meet my friend James in the evening. Usually when we meet he comes into central London and gets the train back from there, this time I suggested we meet in Hemel and I finally get to see where he lives now (he’s from Watford originally, a little bit closer to London). We had some curry and beers in the old town, nice to catch up, and I stayed over at the house he and his wife own, I last saw them both in California last March when they were visiting San Francisco for their anniversary. Next morning I was up early, and before heading back to London on the train (a longer journey than I realized! Hertfordshire is bigger than I thought, and I grew up right next to it not thinking about it much), I walked back up to the old town and drew the churchyard we had walked through the evening before. St. Mary’s is a really old church, this building dating back to the middle of the twelfth century. There was likely a church here for much longer than that, it may even be where King Offa of Mercia was buried, though his grave is now lost. King Offa, there was someone who couldn’t be refused. Although in retrospect, cheap puns on his name probably should be. The tall pointing spire, too big to be included in this format of sketchbook, was added in the fourteenth century and for a long time was the tallest in Europe. The church contains a memorial to the 18th century surgeon and anatomist Sir Astley Cooper, who lived nearby. Unlike many disreputable anatomists of that time who employed body-snatchers or ‘resurrection men’, Sir Astley’s catchphrase was ‘Never gonna dig you up’. It was a really peaceful churchyard, next to a narrow park, and joggers and morning strollers passed me by as I sketched, only mildly hungover from the previous night’s trip to the local pub. Hemel Hempstead is commuter country, a place where people move out to from London while rebounding back in and out to work, like many other towns within an hour or so of the city. It’s bigger than I thought, with this enormous roundabout-within-a-roundabout system, nicknamed the ‘Magic Roundabout’, that functions like an Agatha Christie novel, full of twists and turns and red herrings, maybe a body in the library. There’s the old town, which had some interesting old buildings, and the New Town, a post-war development with a pedestrianized shopping district that reminds me of other such towns in England, with their 1950s concrete and shallow waterways, and made me feel oddly nostalgic for places I’ve never even lived. I didn’t spend much time here but it was quite nice overall, wish I’d sketched a bit more but glad I drew the old church.

Burnt Oak Broadway, corner of Stag Lane

January 10, 2026January 9, 2026Leave a comment

Here are a couple of drawings from Burnt Oak that I did last summer. Specifically, Burnt Oak Broadway. I mentioned in a previous post that Edgware High Street was part of Edgware Road which is part of Watling Street which was an ancient Roman Road running from Dover to Wroxeter, passing through London and running in a north-westerly straight line, give or take. The A5, in modern parlance. It was probably a route before the Romans came as well, used by the ancient Britons, and we don’t really know what it was called before the Saxons migrated here from mainland Europe and called it Watling Street, or Wæcelinga Stræt, after a tribe that lived around what we call St. Alban’s now, the people of Waecla, or Waeclingas. Watling Street also marked the border between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under Alfred and the Viking-ruled territory of the Danelaw. Our side of the street, in Burnt Oak, that would have been in the Danelaw, which explains a few things about us (what’s the Old Norse for “yeah what you looking at, come on then”), with our longships and our Odins, while those posh Saxons lived over there in Harrow with their burnt cakes and their Wodens. Burnt Oak is where I was born and grew up, and supposedly has its origins in Roman times (what’s the Latin for “yeah what you looking at, come on then”) and refers to the old practice of burning an oak tree to mark boundaries (a simple sign would have probably been easier). When we say we are going ‘Up the Watling’ we are not referring to Watling Street, but to Watling Avenue which turns downhill from here. This part of Watling Street, Edgware Road, the A5 whatever, is called Burnt Oak Broadway. Hey this is Britain, we can have as many names for things as we bloody well like. One summer morning I got up and walked up to the top of the Watling, and stood on Burnt Oak Broadway looking over at the junction with Stag Lane. This junction is ancient, and you could grow ancient waiting for the bloody lights to change, and is probably named after the Bald Faced Stag pub which would have been to my left on the Broadway before it was closed about a decade or so ago. All the old pubs are closing, there will be none left soon. There are none left around here. That’s a different story. The large building on the left with the clock on top has stood there for many years, and reminds me so much of being a kid. It was a department store for a long time, but it reminds me of my Nan, because I would see it when going to her flat, which was just across the street further down the Broadway, or in the Stag, where she would spend most days. Across the junction on Stag Lane, that building painted an ugly blue is now an amusement arcade and casino called Silvertime, well I say amusement, who really knows. It’s in the former location of Nat West Bank, and this was my branch when I opened my first account as a kid, do you remember those porcelain NatWest piggy banks? My mum or dad still have them somewhere I think. Sad to see the bank closed. There used to be two NatWests in Burnt Oak, both closed now. There is another blue Silvertime across the street, also located in a closed down bank, where the old Midland Bank (later HSBC) used to be. Funny how these casinos open in old banks. I really don’t know why they have to paint these old buildings bright blue though. Next door is a Romanian food market, and a restaurant next to that. There’s a sizeable Romanian community in Burnt Oak now, that was not there when I left. My mum did have a friend from Romania when I was a kid, she used to work with him and we would often meet with his family. He had escaped Ceaucescu’s brutal regime in the 70s or 80s (hiding in a box, apparently), and was able to bring his family over after that. I still remember when the communist regimes fell, and he was finally able to go and visit his homeland. Last time I saw him he had opened a bakery on Burnt Oak Broadway, about seventeen years ago just down from here, and he gave me a massive plate of pastries, but that’s gone now. Everything changes, you can’t stop it, but we’ve all got our stories in these places.

Further down the Broadway, opposite the flats where my Nan used to lived (when she wasn’t in the Stag), I stood under a tree and drew this on the morning before heading off on my trip to Poland. This building is in a sorry state, disused, boarded up. When I was younger it was a Mecca bingo hall, but closed more than ten years ago. We love leaving this big old buildings empty and derelict. Years ago it used to be a cinema, when my Mum was a girl, the Savoy, she remembers seeing Calamity Jane there as a kid. Someone contacted me to let me know that there are proposals to convert this space and the spaces next to it into new flats, with concerns about some more local history being lost to the march of redevelopment. Luxury flats are probably better than bright blue ‘adult gaming centres’, but London is at the mercy of big corporate property developers these days. Communities would be nice, and they still exist, if you want it. Pubs would be nice, and newsagents, and a post office, and banks with humans, and a cafe where you can get a nice cup of tea. It’s funny, I like drawing these big old buildings whose presence echoes so much through not only my own history but that of my family and local friends, yet I think I only ever stepped foot in here once in my life, when it was a bingo hall when I was a kid, and I am probably misremembering that for somewhere else. Memory and Nostalgia are funny things. I was considering writing a book called “I Remember When Things Used To Be A Little Bit Different From How They Are Now” but things keep changing and changing again. So I will just keep on drawing what I see, until it does. These were the only sketches I did in Burnt Oak in this trip but I did more around London, stay tuned for those, they won’t all come with maudlin’ nostalgic stories, but most will.

back to the railway hotel

January 9, 2026Leave a comment

The Railway Hotel in Edgware, at the end of the Northern Line in London, has been lying empty and boarded up for a long time now. It closed in 2006, twenty years ago, and it’s been in a sorry state ever since, even suffering a fire in 2016, which sometimes happens to old buildings that are in the way of new buildings. However it did survive, though it has spent the past decade with nobody sure of what will happen to it. However recent plans have been proposed to finally renovate the site as part of the lerger ‘Forumside’ development of the land behind it. That’s what it’s being called, Forumside, and this is that big plan to build tall towers with hundreds of flats, changing the look of Edgware, but the plan is that they will be keeping the Railway Hotel and restoring it, so we can still enjoy some older buildings in Edgware. Not that I live there any more, but I care what happens to this venerable old building, that goes back all the way to 1936. Ok yeah that’s not that old, you don’t have the ghost of Dick Turpin riding through here, but they don’t make pretend-old buildings like this any more. I stood in the graveyard of St. Margaret’s Church across Station Road, careful not to stand on anyone’s graves (I’m not superstitious, except when I definitely am, but I’m always careful where I tread in a graveyard). Those boarded up windows are sad, but it saves cleaning the windows. I love those big old chimneys. I remember going into the railway, it was a lovely pub and friendlier than most, and we had a nice dinner up there for my mate Terry’s 18th birthday (I remember his grandad making us laugh with his funny sayings). I drew the view below on the same day as the first sketch, just from a different angle so you can see more of the adjoining side building. It was that sky though, I loved drawing that last summer. Unfortunately that newer blend of Moleskine watercolour paper is not good at all and makes every wash look like it’s on textured bogroll, all those little bumps, this is why I have now stopped using the Moleskines, until they improve. I’m using Hahnemuhle now, which is much better.

I actually did draw it back in 2015 and wrote about it in a blog post ten years ago, where I lamented the ‘End of the Railway’ and noted that it was not a listed building. That’s what I was told at the time, but maybe it was listed (in 2003); it was added to the ‘Historic England’s At Risk Register‘ in 2013. Here’s the sketch I did in 2015. By the way if you’re on Facebook and talking about this building and you use my sketch, please ask me first, ffs. I drew that on Christmas Eve, I remember it, I think it was the last Christmas we even spent in London. We used to go over every other year for Christmas, but haven’t done so in years now. I’ve been over in November and December, but not for the big day itself. I remember going up to Edgware, last bit of shopping at M&S and WH Smiths the Boardwalk (both gone from there now), drawing the Railway Hotel, and then getting the 305 bus (a route which no longer exists) back to Burnt Oak to get ready for Father Christmas. I don’t think it snowed that year.

You can learn about the new plans for this building at: https://edgwarerailwayhotel.co.uk/. They have an artist impression of what it might look like (and I swear it looks like I’m sitting on a bench drawing it). Whatever ends up happening, I hope the Railway reopens with a new life, and these big mock Tudor triangles and tall chimneys stay on the Station Road for another century. Well ok they haven’t been here for one full century yet but you know what I mean. Stay tuned for more sketches from my big Summer 2025 trip back to Europe. These are the last of the Edgware ones, but there are a couple more from Burnt Oak to come.