London's Urban Landscape

London’s Urban Landscape London’s London’s Urban Landscape is the first major study of a global city to adopt a materialist perspective and stress the significance of place and the built environment to the urban landscape. Edited by Christopher Tilley, the volume is inspired by phenomenological thinking and presents fine-grained ethnographies of the practices of everyday life in London. In doing so, it charts a unique perspective on the city that integrates ethnographies of daily life with an analysis of material culture. The first part of the volume considers the residential sphere of urban life, discussing in detailed case studies ordinary residential streets, housing estates, suburbia and London’s mobile ‘linear village’ of houseboats. The second part analyses the public sphere, including ethnographies of markets, a park, the social rhythms of a taxi rank, and graffiti and street art. London’s Urban Landscape returns us to the everyday lives of people and the manner in which they understand their lives. The deeply sensuous character of the embodied experience of the city is invoked in the thick descriptions of entangled relationships between people and places, and the paths of movement between them. What stories do door bells and house facades tell us about contemporary life in a Victorian terrace? How do antiques acquire value and significance in a market? How does living in a concrete megastructure relate to the lives of the people who dwell there? These and a host of other questions are addressed in this fascinating book that will London’s appeal widely to all readers interested in London or contemporary urban life. is Professor of Anthropology at UCL. He has written and Urban Christopher Tilley edited numerous books on archaeology, anthropology and material culture studies. Christopher Tilley Edited by His recent books include The Materiality of Stone (2004), Handbook of Material Culture (ed. 2006), Body and Image (2008), Interpreting Landscapes (2010) and Landscape An Anthropology of Landscape (2017). Another Way of Telling Edited by Christopher Tilley Cover image: © Jack B / Unsplash Free open access versions available from Cover design: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press www.ironicitalics.com London’s Urban Landscape London’s Urban Landscape Another Way of Telling Edited by Christopher Tilley First published in 2019 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press Text © Contributors, 2019 Images © Contributors and copyright holders named in captions, 2019 The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as authors of this work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. This book is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Tilley, C. (ed.). 2019. London’s Urban Landscape: Another Way of Telling. London, UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787355583 Further details about Creative Commons licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to re-use any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons license, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ISBN: 978-1-78735-560-6 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-559-0 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-558-3 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-561-3 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-562-0 (mobi) ISBN: 978-1-78735-563-7 (html) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787355583 Contents List of figures vii List of tables xv Notes on contributors xvii Preface xxi Introduction: Materialising the urban landscape 1 Christopher Tilley Part I: The domestic and residential sphere 1 Change and continuity in a central London street 67 Ilaria Pulini 2 Towards a phenomenology of the concrete megastructure: Space and perception at the Brunswick Centre, London 117 Clare Melhuish 3 Isolation: A walk through a London estate 149 Dave Yates 4 The making of a suburb 178 David Jeevendrampillai 5 The linear village: Experience of continuous cruising on the London waterways 204 Titika Malkogeorgou Part II: The public sphere 6 ‘We’re all mad down here.’ Liminality and the carnivalesque in Smithfield Meat Market 263 Caroline Wilson 7 Observation and selection: Objects and meaning in the Bermondsey Antiques Market 301 Dave Yates CONTENTS v 8 Rank and file on Harrington Road. Rhythmanalysis: Stories of place and the place of stories 325 Alex Young 9 Holland Park: An elite London landscape 353 Christopher Tilley 10 From pollution to purity: The transformation of graffiti and street art in London (2005–17) 403 Rafael Schacter Index 426 vi LONDON’S URBAN LANDSCAPE List of figures 0.1 Map showing the places in London discussed in the text. Source: author 46 1.1 Cheniston Gardens (encircled in red) and the surrounding area of Kensington. Source: Ordnance Survey open data, 2017 68 1.2 The Muffin Man at the corner between Cheniston Gardens and Wrights Lane. Source: author 69 1.3 View of Wrights Lane from north, before 1881. The brick wall enclosed the rear gardens of houses facing High Street Kensington. The small cottage at the bottom, used as a stable or a warehouse, was later incorporated into the northern sector of the Cheniston Gardens development. © RBKC Local Studies & Archives department 70 1.4 Nos 7–11 Cheniston Gardens – contrasting facades. Source: author 70 1.5 Examples of doorbells in Cheniston Gardens. Source: author 71 1.6 Bedrooms at no. 17 before the auction of the building (2014) and after renovation (2016). Source: author 77 1.7 Kitchens at no. 17 before and after renovation. Source: author 78 1.8 Diagram showing the variation in occupation density of Cheniston Gardens houses from 1881 to 2015. Source: author 83 1.9 Map of the area before Cheniston Gardens was developed. Source: Ordnance Survey Map 1871, Sheet 74 Kensington 84 1.10 Entrance to Cheniston Gardens studios nested among two rows of townhouses. Source: author 84 LIST OF FIGURES vii 1.11 Cheniston Gardens, view from south. To the left Cheniston Lodge and the apartment house that were added to the row of townhouses in 1885 and 1895. Source: author 85 1.12 Charles Booth’s map of London poverty (1891). The CG houses are highlighted in yellow, the colour of the upper-middle and upper classes. © The British Library Board, Maps C.21.a.18 det. 87 1.13 Maid on the front door of a Cheniston Gardens townhouse. Photo by Edward Linley Sambourne, 29 July 1906. © The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, 18 Stafford Terrace 88 1.14 Aerial view of the rear extensions of the central group of Cheniston Gardens townhouses. © Google Earth 91 1.15 Place of birth of Cheniston Gardens’ residents in 2011 Census. Source: author 96 1.16 Cheniston Gardens – view towards the central corner of the street with the birch trees from a top-floor flat. Source: author 102 1.17 Emma’s neighbourhood map. Source: author 103 2.1 View from east through Brunswick Square’s porticoed entrance, O’Donnell Court © S. Stone 119 2.2 View of winter gardens, O’Donnell Court, prior to 2006 refurbishment. Source: author 120 2.3 View through A-frame structure, Foundling Court, first floor level. © S. Stone 121 2.4 Front door, Foundling Court. Source: author 122 2.5 Brunswick Centre shopping precinct, view from south, prior to 2006 refurbishment. Source: author 123 2.6 ‘A high street for Bloomsbury’: view through shopping precinct after refurbishment, showing new supermarket at northern end. Source: author 123 2.7 Interior view looking across the precinct from O’Donnell Court, 2006. © S. Stone 132 2.8 View of internal circulation spaces, Foundling Court, 2001. Source: author 138 2.9 View through second floor access gallery to flats (perimeter block, Foundling Court) 2001. Source: author 139 3.1 Rosemary Avenue looking west. Source: author 150 3.2 Hounslow West – station to the far right, with the Beavers (the Meadows) Estate to the left visible by the trees (Google Maps, 2016 – accessed 14 December 2016) 152 viii LONDON’S URBAN LANDSCAPE 3.3 Entrance to the Beavers Estate from Vincent Road. Source: author 153 3.4 Beavers Estate C1971–3. © London Metropolitan Archives 2016 (GLC/AR/PL/17) 154 3.5 The ‘bison frame’ blocks today. Source: author 155 3.6 The Beavers Estate tunnel. Source: author 158 3.7 The play park in the centre of the estate. Source: author 161 3.8 Shopping area at ‘the bottom’. Source: author 168 3.9 The Hub. Source: author 169 3.10 ‘The stones’. Source: author 172 4.1 A map of Surbiton, South West London and its relation to Kingston (map made by author using OS data copyright 2014). 182 4.2 Walking by the river promenade. Photograph by Tangle Photography, reproduced with permission. 183 4.3 The filter beds and the busy Portsmouth Road. Source: author 184 4.4 The high street (main shopping area) of Surbiton, Victoria Road. Source: author 184 4.5 The town houses of Surbiton, designed by Thomas Pooley. Source: author 185 4.6 A Pooley town house. Source: author 186 4.7 The workers’ cottages on a ‘river road’.

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