En route from The Glasshouse to (see previous post) to meet friends near London Bridge, I wandered past the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret. I usually give museums a miss during Open House by dint of the fact that they're accessible at other times, but I had some time to kill and it's been on my list of places to visit for ages, so I popped in. Again, I spent a bit longer inside than I intended, because it's ace, especially the Herb Garret, which smells awesome. There are piles of dried plants and powders all over the place, with little bottles and things tucked into random surprise corners, as well as cabinets filled with old bottles and surgical equipment. For a vintage ephemera fan, it's pretty cool, and I found such gems as Neoklenz, Beechams pills, Concentrated Maggot Wash (ewww), Mawson's Double Action Breast Reliever and a rather disturbing list of hints on the use of the enema syringe. (And just watch the pervs flock in via Google for the last two.)
The operating theatre itself is rather nice, too, offering some pleasing clean-lined minimalism after the glorious excess of The Glasshouse. Unfortunately, I happened to catch the eye of a random camera nerd who followed me around a bit after I casually joked about us trying to take a photo of the same thing at the same time, so I didn't manage to get the exact picture I was after, but I like this one.
More pics here. Read more on the museum at Nothing To See Here.
Downstairs, the shell of St Thomas' was open to the public for the first time in over 50 years. It's now home to an architecture practice called the Cathedral Group [warning: typical architects' flash-only website], and they had lots of contemporary art and architectural dioramas on display. I am a fan of architectural dioramas because I love miniaturised versions of very big things, so I enjoyed those (here's the Deptford Project in miniature), but the art was a lot more hit and miss. My favourite art pieces weren't in fact officially art; one was an old dockyard sign reminding workers that it was against the law to spit in any of the dockyard buildings and the other was a fantastic yellow-and-pink mannequin, created by the firm for an old office party, who wouldn't have looked out of place in Andrew Logan's house.
My other unlikely favourite feature was the window in the ladies' loo; a perfect principle of minimalist design. In fact, it was a design I'd already seen recently, in this photo by Maraid, (which I liked so much I totally copied it, except I had to cheat and use Poladroid to get the desired effect). I also rather liked the shadows cast by the frames on the windows.
More pics here.
Then on to meet friends outside Southwark Cathedral (which was not participating in Open House and was midway through a service so I didn't go in). From there, a bus to Rotherhithe, with the attention of visiting the Brunel Museum and attending the launch of the Geek Atlas that was taking place. However, we got distracted by the Sands Studio and Rotherhithe Picture Research Library next door.
This is one of those fantastic resources that not enough people know about, and was one that I had passed on the way to the Mayflower pub next door, and always meant to visit when it was open, but as usual had forgotten about. The picture library is particularly special because it's open to the public during the week, and they are free to go and browse the shelves to find huge picture scrapbooks under practically any subject they could possibly want. The shelves are organised in sections which can lead to some amusing juxtapositions on the shelf labels; for example, the religion and war categories are right next to each other. A particular favourite in the "Trades" section was the shelf labelled "meteorologist milkmen".
The building is a Grade II listed warehouse, built in the 18th Century for storing grain brought in via the Thames. In the picture library the support wooden beams have been left exposed, some of which looked as though they might even have been recycled from old ships — which, in fact, they had. These old masts also appear in the nearby church of St. Mary Rotherhithe.
Although originally created as a film studio, they do seem to rather trade on their past glories (their most recent film was The Children's Midsummer Nights' Dream nearly a decade ago, and they've only made nine features since 1976), and in fact it's their bread-and-butter work which is far more interesting, because they make period costumes using period techniques. Most of these are for lavish period dramas — often those where the clothes are in fact the best bit about them — but sometimes they also make clothes for museum displays, such as two costumes we were shown which will soon make their home in the Museum of London. I was fascinated to see the workshops and the equipment used, because it was really interesting to discover what some of the clothes and accessories were really made of — everything from dresses made from old velvet curtains (bloody heavy) to gold stars made from the gold foil of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Just think about that the next time you watch Sweeney Todd or The Tudors.
Unfortunately, I was the only person during the tour to take any photos and the man giving the tour seemed to think this was a bit suspicious, perhaps because I tend to take photos of things that other people ignore; in this case, stuff like labels on drawers and the different types of buttons on display. I was trying not to be intrusive or interrupt his spiel as we went around, so I kept wandering away from the main group a bit as well, and looking back on it I can see why he must have thought I was being furtive. Although, when he started asking me quite personal questions about myself, I felt more like I was being picked on just because I was the only one actually taking any photos. So I told him that, although I'd be happy to do so if it was just him, I didn't want to talk in front of a big group of strangers, and he snapped and asked me not to take any more photos. At the time I thought he was over-reacting, but I suppose I really must have looked furtive and he might have felt like I was using the Open House tour as an opportunity to spy out some competition or something. As it happened my camera battery died at that exact point anyway, and in fact the light in there was too poor for most of my photos to even come out, which is a shame because I was really impressed with what they do and it would have been nice to show you.
However, this story does have a happy ending, because as we were was leaving, he came rushing out of the door saying, "hey, miss, I thought we were going to sit and talk about your photography!" I kind of wanted to make my escape because I thought he was going to tell me off again, so I politely declined with an excuse of another appointment (I did have to be somewhere else, just not that very second), and he actually looked disappointed and apologised for snapping at me. And I said I realised that he'd been giving tours all day and was probably exhausted so I quite understood. After I explained that I like to take pictures of the things most people overlook, he actually looked quite pleased and said, "well in that case, you must come back any time!" and we parted on very good terms after all (for a moment I almost thought he was going to hug me). And go back I shall, because it's a fascinating gem of a place and I'm gutted I didn't get any good photos. Also, they have a free film club!
We popped next door to the Brunel Museum even though it was too late for a tour, and happened upon Craig Smith packing up from the Geek Atlas book launch, having recognised him from the talk he gave at Interesting a couple of weeks ago (ostensibly about waterwheels, but rather endearingly about his dad). I didn't buy a copy, but it looks pretty nifty — although the paucity of addresses and contact information is a bit annoying. Not everyone wants to work out a location from longitude and latitude all the time.
And that was Saturday's Open House done for another year. I didn't plan to spend it all in one borough, but doing so actually made a lot of sense, particularly one like Southwark with so much to see, although next year I am going to try and see at least one place in my home borough as well, because, well, I should really, shouldn't I?
