As London bridges go, Vauxhall Bridge is one of the least impressive. I’d walked over it hundreds of times, en route to Tate Britain or Pimlico, and I’d always paused to take in the views of the river, but had I actually noticed the bridge itself? No.
So, last November, when a group of 26-ers gathered on Zoom to find out which bridge they’d been randomly allocated for the new 26 Bridges project, and I got Vauxhall, I was a bit crestfallen. I would have preferred Putney, my local bridge, or Waterloo, which was built by women, or frankly just one of the handsomer ones. Each writer was required to collaborate with a creative partner on an artwork that would be auctioned to help fund a skin cancer specialist nurse at UCLH, and I wasn’t sure Vauxhall was charismatic enough.
How wrong I was. I found an artistic partner – a wonderful painter called Rupert Whale – and after both doing some initial research, we ventured out on a frigid December day to explore ‘our’ bridge. I scribbled in my notebook with cold-stiffened fingers while Rupert gamely battled to draw with the pages of his notebook flapping in the wind. We noted the bridge’s colours under the grime: midnight blue, oxblood, custard yellow, and its five ribbed arches spanning the water. The construction was unassuming, but had a workmanlike dignity that slowly became apparent.
Our biggest discovery, though, was that just upstream of the bridge, and visible at extreme low tide, lies London’s oldest crossing, thought to be between 2,300 and 5,000 years old, when this part of the Thames was marshland. Rupert and I were thrilled to locate the remains: two rows of blackened oak posts protruding from the mud; originally these would have supported wooden planking that led from the south bank to an island where the dead were buried. A sacred site, hidden in plain view.
Eight months on, Rupert is hard at work in his studio, building up layers of drawing, acrylic and archive photos on a long wood panel. The plan is for fragments of the poem I have written to show through the layers of colour and texture, echoing the way the past intrudes into Vauxhall’s present. I’m so excited to watch it taking shape.
As well as being a writer on the project, I’m also part of the team that’s organising it, alongside Jo Lilford, Lisa Andrews, John Simmons and Stuart Delves. We hope that you, our 26 colleagues, will help us spread the word about the charity auction, which will be livestreamed on the evening of Thursday 16 October. It’s an unmissable chance to buy original artworks, knowing your contribution is going to an excellent cause. So do put the date in your diary!
More information will be coming soon, via this newsletter, member emails and 26’s social media channels. Bloomsbury Festival have very kindly agreed to showcase one artwork per day on their website in the month running up to the auction, so look out for those posts too. And some of the writers and artists involved will discuss their work at Wordstock on 18 October. Buy your tickets here.
– Jill Hopper
In the meantime, you might like to take part in the Great London Bridges Walk on Sunday 14 September, crossing all 26 bridges and covering 32 miles, to help raise money for the skin cancer specialist nurse at UCLH. Find out more here: