Cans Festival

On Saturday 3rd May 'Cans Festival' opened to the public. Banksy, along with street artists from around the world, injected new life into a disused tunnel underneath Waterloo Station.

This exciting half-mile stretch of tunnel, loaned out by Eurostar for six months, opened my eyes to street art. The central location and scale of the place is ideal for raising awareness of high quality graffiti and I think it may make the society look at this type of art in a different way.



I like this kind of art as it is very bold, imaginative and brings colour to the urban landscape.

Banksy said he wanted to "transform a dark forgotten filth pit" into "an oasis of beautiful art".





Frequently these stencils are trying to communicate something to the viewer. Banksy has shown a man cleaning a wall perhaps to suggest how he would like the street art to remain in the tunnel.


There was so much variety on the walls with several of the murals playing to the grimy feeling of the tunnel.

One memorable piece that was different to the others was of two giant faces. Instead of just applying paint to the walls, the surface had been chipped away to form a picture, with the left over pieces still on the floor. This also gave it a 3D quality.


Another successful factor of the Cans Festival is that in the opening three day exhibition, the public had the chance to participate by adding their stencil work to the tunnel walls, making it their own space as well.

Banksy says: "I've always felt anyone with a paint can should have as much say in how our cities look as architects and ad men."

Kilmorey Mausoleum Wildlife Garden

On Saturday 26th April I was invited by Claire McCormack, of the Richmond Environment Trust, to volunteer at Kilmorey Mausoleum Wildlife Garden in Isleworth. I found out about volunteering when I saw some of the work that they exhibited at the Landmark Eco Fair.


The grounds consist of the Kilmorey Mausoleum set in approximately 1,352 sq metres of mixed hardwoods, hedgerow shrubs, wild and cottage flowers and a summer meadow, all hidden behind a high brick wall. The only access is through one door in the wall.

Kilmorey was left abandoned for years but is now being restored by the Richmond Environment Trust. The garden was originally part of an estate which once belonged to Lord Kilmorey, who had a Mausoleum (burial memorial) built in the early 1850s for his mistress and himself. This Egyptian inspired structure has quite an impact on arrival and is the center point of the garden.
The site has been opened to the public on several occasions (including London Open House weekend), attracting hundreds of visitors on each occasion.





One element of this site that particularly interested me was that it incorporated a children's story telling circle which is similar to one of my own proposals in a uni woodland project. The outdoor classroom has a series of tree stumps to provide seating for local school children, which creates an ideal environment to learn about wildlife.



Amongst the 30 volunteers many were children accompanied by their parents. It was encouraging to see them learning about nature and the importance of conserving it from such a young age.


One of the tasks (which was advised by the Stag Beetle Biodiversity Group in 2005) was stacking tree stumps and logs which would rot and provide habitats for insects. Adult and larval stag beetles and lesser stag beetles have subsequently been found in these piles.

Other jobs included wood chipping the paths and the story telling circle as well as managing the weeds. The rotting chips attract a wide range of invertebrates, which in turn have provided a valuable food resource for larger creatures such as song thrushes and foxes. Stag beetle larvae have been recorded in other wood chip paths on other sites, so it is hoped that they will breed in Kilmorey too.


Kilmorey was overall an eco friendly site.
A Sun-Mar composting toilet was installed in a shed built during February 2007. A composting toilet is a waterless toilet, i.e. one that doesn’t use water to take the waste somewhere else; it also allows natural processes to produce useful compost. This composting toilet works by winding a lever to allow for an aerobic breakdown of waste.