Tuesday is drawing day - Docklands Museum

It was off to Docklands last week, via DLR to West India Quay. An interesting mix of old and new, the old, eg the cranes, rather overshadowed by the new buildings. The first dock in the area was built in 1696, followed by Georgian and Victorian expansion; the last dock was added in 1921. The docks were massively damaged in WW2, but it was containerization that led to the docks' demise. Redevelopment started in the 1980s ... and just look at it now.

The Museum of London Docklands records the rich history of the wider area. We started with the earlier eras, in my case with the Saxon port, its artefacts gathered in a vitrine -

Behind me was the model of London Bridge as it looked in 1600 -

Drawn by the colours and shapes of the houses, I tackled a few sections, getting very frustrated with the angles and perspective in the pylons -

Caryl too had been attracted by the colours -

On the opposite page is a cast of a head of a Yoruba man, 1100-1400.

Among Jo's drawings were these very individual locks -

The one at the bottom has the insignia of the East India Company.

Janet claims not to have done any drawing for several decades, but filled many pages, including this shelf of jugs -

She had brought along just a pen and a pencil, an economy of means that I admire and aspire to, even as the search for the "perfect" drawing implement continues via the weekly show'n'tell -

London Bridge
I'm excited to discover that another model of Old London Bridge is in the church of St Magnus the Martyr, which still stands at the site of the bridge (the old bridge was torn down in 1831). The model depicts the bridge as it would have appeared around 1400, and is populated with over 900 little people, including one in policeman's uniform, among the buildings.

Here's a summary of the bridge's evolution, from 1209 to 1831 -

On the way to find that image, these mills at Meaux cried out to be displayed too - they show the jutting additions that caught my eye on the bridge model -

The site from which both these images come is "A BERLIN BASED BLOG COLLECTING LOST + FOUND PIECES OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, DESIGN,AND URBANISM" ... fascinating ... do have a look at the archive of images garnered during the author's architectural studies.