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 piece of land that has been left to grow wild in a man made landscape. To be a true Wildcorner, the land has to be restricted from public access. Many are hidden from public view altogether. A common type of wildcorner is referred to by govements and local authorities as a 'brownfield site'.

Wildcorners and corridors* are dotted all over the capital and vary in content, depending on their location and history. In this blog we focus particularly on the Wildcorners of south east London.

* Wildcorridors are networks of pathways that run through the city and facilitate the propagation and growth of weeds. Many are restricted from public access such as railway embankments and urban rivers. In the suburbs, footpaths such as the Green Chain connect public green areas by a network of alleyways and passages that skirt between houses and private land. It could be argued that these are also wild corridors.



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.

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Friday, 16 May 2014

Road Patterns

This animated map of London elegantly traces the mazes of roads forming patterns like nerve fibres of a human brain or the arteries veins and capillaries of some great beast. Layers of networks build up and adjust through out the capitols history, from the ancient roads left by the Romans through to the urban sprawl of the city today.
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Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Robert Macfarland on Wild Landscapes

 Robert Macfarland - Unexpected Wilderness - The Other Side of Essex


Macfarland's lecture on landscape and the human heart


 Robert Macfarland - Unexpected Wilderness - Night Time



and ..
'Writing Wild Places - Wastelands To Wonderlands' Exhibition at the British Library, May - Sept 2012


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Thursday, 1 May 2014

Rubezahl - The Mountain Spirit

Josef Madlener; Der Berggeist (The Mountain Spirit)

 Rubezahl is a figure in German folklore, the tutelary spirit or genius of the mountains that derive their name from him. He is responsible for the weather of his peaks, and the thunder and lightning, rain, snow, and fog there reflect his capricious moods. He is Prince of the Gnomes in the Riesengebirge, and all lesser spirits are under his sway. The respectful way to address him is as "Lord of the Mountains" or "Lord John." "Rubezahl" is a name of derision and means "Turnip Counter," and it still angers him. According to the old tale he once captured a princess and swore he would do anything to win her love. She set him to counting the turnip seedlings in a vast field, and while he was busy doing so she made her escape.

 Rubezahl is a shape changer, and appears in many forms, and can be anything from a gnome to a giant, and can be astonishingly ugly or "as fair as Apollo." He appears most often as an old man with a staff that appears to be an uprooted tree. He is something of a trickster, and his nature changeable. It was written of him in 1783 "...Rubezahl, you should know, has the nature of a powerful genius: capricious, impetuous, peculiar, rascally, crude, immodest, haughty, vain, fickle, today your warmest friend, tomorrow alien and cold;...roguish and respectable, stubborn and flexible..."
 Between the historical lands of Bohemia and Silesia lie theRiesengebirge (Giant Mountains). There is a very old map of the area, and striding among the mountains may be seen a strange gigantic figure, horned and with a tail, walking upright with a tall staff. This is the earliest known picture of Rubezahl*, the Lord of the Mountains.
 Rubezahl stories have been collected in many German books over the years, and many artists have painted him. Josef Madlener painted a picture of him as Der Berggeist (The Mountain Spirit); J. R. R. Tolkien had a postcard reproduction of this picture and labelled it "The Origin of Gandalf."  - [Source] diaphanee.tumblr.com
[Seen below.]
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