it’s stock, it’s ‘social capital’, it’s history, it’s legacy, it’s future viability, it’s rightful successor

— 20-mph Speed-Limit campaign [for the Greater Spitalfields area]
“we now know where to get some very distinctive ‘campaign registration badges’ that the car and carriage drivers of our day can elect to display in solidarity – to indicate that even when ‘motorised’ they still recognise the benefits of a 20-mph limit to pedestrians, cyclists, residents and shopkeepers too!”

— more trade parking on and around Hackney Road [and more support for ‘main road businesses’ generally]
“whether our ironmonger of old and of choice would want to stay if ‘we’ sorted out i) parking with LBH…”

– a website for the ‘nuts and bolts’ aspect of the business
“moving some of any pre-orderable business online, by perhaps helping to design an online Etsy-esque shop lined with wall-to-ceiling e-pigeonholes”

– a Carriage-boot Sale (stock clearance)
“to keep a whole truck load of history, in bits, in the area of it’s ‘glory days’ or at least in the hands of those who sense it’s value. Out-moded it may be but not out of fashion or out of place, not in E1 or N1, not with all it’s potential to be re-imagined and evolved”

– registration of “Assets of Community Value” (under the Localism Act 2011)
“councils ‘everywhere’, across the city and land, are encouraging people to help them and therefore themselves by adding everything from village halls to car parks to the official Community Assets register.”

– a Geffrye Museum-led skills-training workshop (…for their sins! — ‘living history’…however much we might not like the expression or it’s expression in this context!) “…somewhere where the Geffrye could develop a whole new reputation and ‘income stream’ by establishing a site for artisan workshops and ‘apprenticeship space’ …After all this is the craftsmanship that the Geffrye rightly sets out with immense pride, and authority, on the museum floor, and yet does so without really educating people… in terms of what really made ‘the trades that made’…”

– a Geffrye-friendly project listing all the local [non-domestic] interiors of note
“from Pellici’s of Bethnal Green Road to Lewis’ of Hackney Road…this is where and how the Museum could be spending their money and in the process properly making amends, not least with their founding forebears if not their own contemporary curatorial consciences”

More thoughts below, not least for any one who wants to get thinking and doing — and might just have a few more thoughts of their own to share 🙂

“Before 1920, no road vehicle was permitted to travel at more than 20mph and had a plate attached to this effect – Daniel Lewis & Son Ltd has them in stock today.”

…which means that 100 years on, if as a community of residents and businesses stretching ever wider across the Hackney and City borders we ever wanted to try and extend L.B. Islington’s pioneering legislation of a 20mph speed limit to at least all the back streets of ‘the greater Spitalfields’ (thereby challenging between now and 2020, LBTH’s preference for ’30mph mostly’) we now know where to get some very distinctive ‘campaign registration badges’ that the car and carriage drivers of our day can elect to display in solidarity – to indicate that even when ‘motorised’ they still recognise the benefits of a 20-mph limit to pedestrians, cyclists, residents and shopkeepers too!

OK so those early twentieth-century regulation plates may not be ‘tea-towel quality’ and Adam-Dant-drawn, or old enough to have ever been ‘horse-drawn’ or anything other than the work of an artist unknown, but they can still give us a sense of place and purpose, belonging and ‘better times’ (yet to come and/or soon to return!) – so won’t we be wise to make use of them 🙂 In fact by salvaging this aspect of the Son’s stock we show that we know, at least to some extent, the value of what has gone before, willingly following in its footsteps and wheel ruts in order to bring history into the present, to it’s enrichment if not its rescue 🙂 I’d actually want to believe, and assert, that we honour both Mr Dant and Mr Lewis Jnr and Senior by putting the best of the past to good use, in whatever shape or form it exists, be that tangible or intangible, limited edition or once abundantly mass-produced.

But of course in this case our source is sadly only going to be around for another “few months”. News that invites the most urgent question of whether our ironmonger of old and of choice would want to stay if ‘we’ were able to sort out (at David Lewis’ request!) … i) parking with LBH – perhaps by way of a couple of 20-minute loading bays somewhere nearby even if not on Hackney Road (we could even use the ‘regulation 20’ badges for this campaigning effort too!) ii) a pick-up point ‘annex’ with dispatch counter (and roof!) – away from the main site on a nearby back-street iii) moving some of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of any pre-orderable business online, by perhaps helping to design an online, trade-focussed Etsy-esque shop lined with wall-to-ceiling e-pigeonholes (any or all of which may of course have been discussed in-house, in private, already, but I’d like to find out)

I’d certainly be very interested to know what business is expected to be moving into 493 Hackney Road and if it’s not going to be a business…

Is this site – with it’s early 19th century fixtures and examples of bespoke early and mid 20th-century additions – worth listing, not so much with English Heritage but, in keeping with the whole spirit of Spitalfields and it’s ‘Life’, as an “Asset of Community Value” (under the Localism Act 2011)
http://www.theplacestation.org.uk/what

Oh yes locals all, here and hereabouts… Part 5 Chapter 3 of the Localism Act – ‘The Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012. This was something that I was going to bring up in conversation when we had a certain ‘local’ to save, even though the Marquis of Lansdowne (the pub rather than person!) wouldn’t have actually sat that comfortably within the Localism legislation, in quite the same way that other hostelries do and have. The fact is however that councils ‘everywhere’, across the city and land, are encouraging people to help them and therefore themselves by adding everything from village halls to car parks to the official Community Assets register.

Alternatively, maybe we could now suggest to our old friends (and new ones!) at the Geffrye Museum that as well as there being a Geffrye-friendly project to be done, listing all the local interiors of note – from Pellici’s of Bethnal Green Road to Lewis’ of Hackney Road – 493-95 Hackney Road is actually where and how the Museum could be spending their money and in the process properly making amends, not least with their founding forebears if not their own curatorial consciences 🙂

Small businesses aside – them having stepped aside rather than been pushed – I would want to suggest that the Lewis & Son site would seem to be ‘ideal’ in so many ways (not least location, condition and history) as an off-site and very much in situ ‘living education space’. This being somewhere where the Geffrye could ‘live lightly’ in a pre-existing albeit sensitively renovated and evolved space and develop a whole new reputation and ‘income stream’ (a highly positive one) by establishing a site for artisan workshops and ‘apprenticeship space’ and becoming known for and indeed expert in passing on the trade and craft skills ‘of place’, of both the historical near East End and the present-day. After all this is the craftsmanship that the Geffrye rightly sets out with immense pride, and authority, on the museum floor, and yet does so without really educating people… in terms of what really made ‘the trades that made’, and in fact still does all the while they still do, and do so just around the corner from the Geffrye in all those many corners of the East End from Homerton to Whitechapel, Shoreditch to Stepney.

Materials, tools, apprenticeships, mastercraftsmen, Guilded labour and standards long set by trades themselves without the need for government intervention. There really is so much for the Public to understand not just as ‘themes’ but as actions that build into a community-centred reality, one that has in fact been built over the last 600-800 years, and over the last 200 years on this one site. Isn’t it therefore about time that Museums passed on their knowledge and expertise in this way, ensuring on a wider societal level it’s practical application, continued relevance, and enduring appreciation – just as The Globe (Bankside) manages to do with it’s workshop-studios hand-making costumes according to 17th century traditions, very successfully not least commercially and in terms of the currency that is industry/peer regard as well as ‘popular support’.

There would be no domestic interiors for any of us to view and aspire to at the Geffrye or indeed anywhere else without these non-domestic spaces and interiors that in fact were so much part of and interwoven within the residential quarters of Restoration, Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian East London.

As the missing piece in their story, the Geffrye, as owners, might even be open/decent enough to offer the Hackney Road site as the ‘shared workspace’ of the East End Trades Guild…with visiting guild members enlivening and enriching the workshops’ education programme.

Meanwhile, if support was forthcoming from some other ‘Lifers’ around these here Fields, I’d be up for organising — prior to any relocation of London’s oldest Ironmongers, and with the proprietor’s permission – a ‘Carriage-boot Sale’, to try and help shift some of David Lewis’ more mature stock. Out-moded it may be but not out of fashion or out of place, not in E1 or N1, not with all it’s potential to be re-imagined and evolved – knowing that if a chess set can be made from supplies available over the counter at Clerkenwell Screws then there is surely much we as a creative and entrepreneurial community can do with the things that David Lewis is not going to be taking with him! A Carriage-boot Sale to keep a whole truck load of history, in bits, in the area of it’s ‘glory days’ or at least in the hands of those who sense it’s value.

L.B.Islington’s 20-mph Ruling
http://www.islington.gov.uk/services/parking-roads/street_improvements/Pages/20mph_limit.aspx

L.B Tower Hamlets speed limit policy
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgsl/551-600/571_speed_limits.aspx

GO20 Campaign in Tower Hamlets (led by GLA member John Biggs)
http://www.london.gov.uk/media/assembly-member-press-releases/labour-party/2012/11/news-from-john-biggs-call-to-tower-hamlets-residents-to-identify-dangerous-junctions-and-streets

What is an ‘Asset of Community Value’
http://www.theplacestation.org.uk/what

Central Government info on Localism Act
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06366
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/2421/contents/made

Organisation aiding the registration of Community Assets
http://www.theplacestation.org.uk

Surely something can be done by negotiation with the council (Hackney I think). It cannot be advantageous for this business to be forced to close for a reason which I think could be surmounted.

How about another campaign along the lines of the pub which the Geffrye Museum wished to demolish. You were successful in getting that decision reversed.

This is such a historic site with a flourishing business still functioning – for them to move IS A SCANDAL.

Furthermore, I go cold thinking that all of this history could be lost if developers take it over.
If the business is intent on moving – how about turning this into a museum celebrating the history of Hackney Road etc.

And the last remaining bomb site – that should definitely be preserved as a site of historic significance.

Heather Dyer