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.

© Copyright of Wildcornerz. All rights reserved. For enquiries please contact: wildcornerz1@yahoo.co.uk

Monday, 28 October 2013

Besson St. SE14, Wildcorner Exploration


Besson St. Wildcorner 1Besson St. Wildcorner 4Besson St. Wildcorner 3Besson St. Wildcorner 2Besson St. Wildcorner 5Besson St. Wildcorner 6
Besson St. Wildcorner 7Besson St. Wildcorner 8Besson St. Wildcorner 9Besson St. Wildcorner 11Besson St. Wildcorner 10Besson St. Wildcorner 21
Besson St. Wildcorner 13Besson St. Wildcorner 12Besson St. Wildcorner 14Besson St. Wildcorner 15Besson St. Wildcorner 15Besson St. Wildcorner 16
Besson St. Wildcorner 16Besson St. Wildcorner 17Besson St. Wildcorner 17Besson St. Wildcorner 18Besson St. Wildcorner 22Besson St. Wildcorner 20
These photographs are were taken from several explorations over the Summer, to the wild corner on Briant and Besson Street. A large corner where a former council estate once stood. Years ago the corner was viewable from the top deck of the 171 which used to pass by. Since the redirection of that bus the corner is not viewable from the street at all and is now only overlooked by a small number of flats.

 Specimen samples of flora and fourna from the site have been collected.

Notables things including an old known tag, Kist, 'Goodbye Charlie Bright', Broke, Badcat, Moral, Norf, Elmo, Eek, evidence of a traveller camp, a small temporary shelter with bedding inside, high hills of rubble covered with thick buddhlia bushes and a most special sighting of Lewisham's very own white deer.
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