wildcornerz: Interview with the great Ken White from 2011

Started January 2010 [by Jack Thurgar]

This is a scrapbook dedicated to the study of London's weeds and the wild places where they grow. Wildcornerz also looks at the languages, cultures and mythologies that develop in these cracks.

What is a Wildcorner?

A Wildcorner is a term referring to a gap that has been left to grow wild in the city. The term encompasses every wild piece of land no matter the size, from large disused sports grounds to small patches of commercial wasteland, to a crack in the pavement. As long as this gap in the man made landscape harbours some kind of weed, then it is considered a Wildcorner.

Wildcorners and Wildcorridors* are dotted all over the capital and vary in content, depending on their location and history. One thing most have in common, is that they are normally restricted in someway from public access or boarded off and hidden from public view altogether. In this blog we focus particularly on the Wildcorners of south east London.

* Wildcorridor; a word used to describe a channel or pathway that runs through an urban landscape, which facilities the propagation and growth of weeds. This includes railway sidings, rivers and canals.

Urban and Suburban Weeds

By the term 'weeds' we are of course referring to the cities wild plants and flowers. But their are also two other weeds that grow in the city.

'Graf' like its botanical relation, has many families and strains. Both of these weeds can often be found together, sharing many qualities including their adaptive nature and unregulated status. Both in many cases, originally entered and populated the city using the railway network.

Another 'weed' that historically flourishes in London is invisible and uses the tops of tower blocks to propagate. Pirate radio like its weed relatives, grows away from the public eye and is constantly adapting to exploit these same gaps across the cities FM radio spectrum, fighting and flourishing in-between the commercial stations.

Monday 4 November 2013

Interview with the great Ken White from 2011

Ken White - A filmed interview at his Forest... by f699457025

This interview is with writer, local historian and geographer / topographer Ken White.
Ken has cycled all over South London taking notes, collecting samples and sketching the landscape. He is author of the incredible 'The Quaggy and its Catchment Area'; a detailed account of the river and its tributaries. The book has the appearance of some kind of amazing underground fanzine, with photocopied sketches and photographs and the text all scribed and printed in his beautiful hand.
In one chapter, he maps a small obscure tributary he has named 'The Hither Green Branch'. We at wildcornerz believe this to be the feed to the pond in 'The Swamp'; a legendary wildcorner along the Hithergreen Sidings. The area is the home of the original Lewisham Natureman legend.
The tributary becomes the part of the Quaggy known as the Chinbrook. White traces it over and underground through Grove park following the train line along the bottom of the valley. The river marked the boundary between the old Parish of Lee and Bromley.
There is copy in Lewisham Local Studies and Archive at Lewisham Library and will possibly be republished by QWAG.. we have been told.
Ken passed the same year this interview was filmed. Part of his ashes were scattered at the located source of the river he loved.