Rowley Gallery Blog
Tucked away around the back of Oxford’s Walton Street is the delightful Art Jericho gallery where a visual treat awaits the curious trek-cyclist, art-lover, flâneur, passer-by or Port Meadow pilgrim. An exhibition by Andrew Walton celebrating the Thames riverside from Jericho to Wolvercote. Continue reading “Walton’s Treat”
Christopher Corr painted this picture to celebrate the opening of the Shard, London’s newest, tallest building. For the past few years we’ve watched it grow from viewpoints all around the city. The inexorable rise of this arrogant and aggressive spike was impossible to ignore. Now it’s here it has quickly become another iconic landmark on the London skyline. A spire with a view – click to ascend and there’s a great view of it from the river here.
After seeing the final episode of Waldemar Januszczak’s Baroque!-From St Peter’s to St Paul’s, in which he singled out the Queen’s House as possibly the most important little building in the whole of British architecture, we felt inspired to visit this previously overlooked prime site. Continue reading “The Queen’s House”
Sam Lee takes his coracle down to the river via Ridley Road and Smithfield accompanied by Gerry Diver, fiddle; Jonny Bridgwood, bass; Michael Wright & Saul Eisenberg, jews harp; Ed Hicks, banjo. For an account of their visit to Khartoum, read English Folk Songs in Sudan by Tim Cumming.
Dear Chris, As mentioned here are a couple or so photos and two sketchbook pages of bird images. I could write for a thousand pages about Port Meadow. I’ve been there ever since I was six years old. It floods in winter, gathers over wintering migrant wild fowl. In the summer it’s a place people swim, sail, walk, make love, do archaeology etc. If you want I can get David to send his poem about the meadow which refers to a drawing of mine. Best wishes to all, love, Andy. Continue reading “Port Meadow”
Three Mills is just off the A12 (aka the East Cross Route or the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach) an unforgiving stretch of urban motorway that flies over east London with little regard for what lies below. We’ve driven past countless times, most often en route to Brighton, but never noticed. The focus was always straight ahead or checking the mirrors or watching for speed cameras or perhaps just occasionally, Look there’s the Fire Station. There was never any reason to stop, in fact it’s quite difficult to do so and it took a few attempts, but eventually we arrived at the Tesco car park. Continue reading “Bridges & Towpaths”
This is The Oarsman’s and Angler’s Map of the River Thames from its Source to London Bridge. It comes rolled in a tube and at one inch to one mile it is 2.5 metres long. It was engraved by E G Ravenstein and first published in 1893. This edition has an introduction by Richard Way, specialist bookseller from Henley on Thames:
…. The Thames flows roughly north west to south east but Ravenstein cleverly elongated this dimension by ironing out the river’s NE SW meanderings. The river is thus contained within an artificial boundary 5 miles wide. The map however retains a true scale along its length. If Ravenstein had represented a geographical reality at this scale the map would be shorter but 4 times wider. Ravenstein presumably selected London Bridge as the end point of the map because it was the last bridge on the river. Tower Bridge opened the year after the map was published.
It would be a difficult piece to frame and an awkward piece to hang. I thought it might be best presented here. Continue reading “Messing About On The River (3)”
Jazmin Velasco has been celebrating her ideal English summer on the river in Henley, Cambridge and Southwold, dodging the endless rain and doing her best to spread some sunshine with this series of light-hearted engravings. Continue reading “Messing About On The River (2)”
This is Kai on the Thames below Tower Bridge, sailing up river, back to where she started at Pimlico Pier and Westminster Boating Base.
Sunday mornings, blue sky, gentle breeze, tacking and gybing backwards and forwards, avoiding tourist boats, fighting the tide, trying not to be dunked by the better sailors. Usually the kids playing pirates are fearless and just love any opportunity to capsize. Occasionally being allowed down river as we were last month, memorably to sail under Tower Bridge and the Olympic Rings.
