Showing posts with label Christopher Gabriel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Gabriel. Show all posts

Tuesday 5 March 2024

Skulferatu #115 - Gabriel's Pier, Gabriel's Wharf, Southbank, London

 


On yet another of the hottest days of the year, I was on a short stay over in London before heading back home.  So, what to do in that heat?  Well, I did the most sensible thing I could do, and as usual, went out in it.  As I was staying near to the Thames, and the tide was low, I thought I’d make my way there and wander along by the shores of the river to do a bit of mudlarking.

 

I wandered along the white hot pavements by Waterloo, and then cut through the back streets until I arrived at Gabriel’s Wharf.  There I made my way past the trendy, overpriced coffee shops and eateries, to a set of stairs that led me down onto a sandy beach by the Thames.

 

A photo taken from underneath a tree with branches hanging above, showing lots of people walking along a paved area that is fenced alongside a river.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Busy people at Gabriel’s Wharf

 

A view along the shoreline of the Thames showing a pebbled foreshore with large buildings running along the right side and a bridge in the distance crossing over the river to a host of other new and old buildings.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Gabriel’s Pier and the shoreline along the Thames

 

A view of a wooden pier jutting out over the foreshore.  A couple of people are sitting on a pebble beach and a child is running by.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Gabriel’s Pier and a bit of beach

 

This little bit of beach was busy with sunbathers and lots of children who were swimming in the brown, swirling waters of the river.  Though I was wilting in the heat I wasn’t going to join them in the cool water, as I remembered the stories of old about how dirty the Thames was.  There was one in particular about a passenger boat that sank sometime in the eighteenth century.  The story goes that of the hundred or so passengers on the boat, around twenty survivors were pulled from the river.  Within a week they had all died, poisoned by the water they had ingested while in the Thames.  The story, like many, may not be true, but the river was once horribly polluted and dirty, and even though it has now been cleaned up massively, you wouldn’t catch me swimming in it.

 

Leaving the beach area, I walked under Gabriel’s Pier and followed the shoreline along the Southbank, past the OXO building and towards Blackfriars Bridge.  Scraping at the stone and mud with my feet I found a few clay pipe stems and bowls, and a couple of small stones that had been cut into a circular shape with a whole drilled in the middle.  What they were I had no idea, but stuck them into my pocket anyway.

 

A view over the rocky and muddy shoreline of the Thames at low tide with lots of historic buildings on the banks on the left side of the photo and a bridge crossing over the river.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Shoreline along the Thames

 

Finding a relatively dry outcrop of rocks I sat down to watch life on the river.  Tourist boats sped past whipping the shoreline with rough waves, a couple of barges ambled by, and a group of a dozen or so canoeists paddled along, bouncing merrily in the waves of the passing boats.  Seagulls soared over, screeching, and gabbling in the way that seagulls do, and up above on the walkways around the shore was the distant mumble of the thousands of people out and about in the hot, hot sun.

 

After daydreaming for a while on my seat of rock, I walked back along the shore to Gabriel’s Pier, which like Gabriel’s Wharf, is named after Christopher Gabriel, whose family business was based here from the 1770s until 1919. 

 

A wooden structure of posts and planks standing over a beach of stones and pebbles.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Gabriel’s Pier

 

A view under the wooden structure of Gabriel's Pier looking down the beach towards the waters of the Thames.  There are wooden posts on both sides with the floor of the pier above.  In the middle there are several posts standing at angles against each other.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Under the pier

 

In a tangled wooden thing that had been fixed between the struts of the pier, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

 

A photo showing a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 115) being held up with a wooden pier and the Thames shoreline in the background.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #115

 

A photo showing a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 115) in a tangled branch like thing stuck to the side of the wooden struts of Gabriel's Pier.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #115 in a tangled wooden thing

 

A close-up view of the small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 115) in a tangled branch like thing stuck to the side of the wooden struts of Gabriel's Pier.  Photo taken by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #115 in a tangled wooden thing

 

TomTom Map showing location of Skulferatu #115
Map showing location of Skulferatu #115

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.508557

Longitude -0.109673

 

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