It is a cold (9°C), damp and grey day but we have come out for a wander nonetheless. After a bus ride we found ourselves in Waterloo.

The White Hart, Cornwall Road, Waterloo

I liked the look of this pub, the White Hart, with its dark green tiles. They were manufactured locally by the Royal Doulton factory which enjoyed its heyday in the Victoria era and this gives a general date for the pub.

St John’s at Waterloo

I was too close to this church, St John’s at Waterloo, to take a good photo and had to use the panorama function to cover it all. This has caused the slight bending of the verticals. It was designed by Francis Octavius Bedford and built between 1822 and 1824.

St John’s, interior

This view shows the interior of the church, looking towards the altar. It is unusual in being a clear space without columns or side aisles. The chairs have all been moved away to the periphery, emphasising this feature and the somewhat austere design.

The organ and clock

This shows a view of the organ and clock. Below is the font decorated with humanoid sculpted figures.

We thought we would take a look at the Leake Street Graffiti Tunnel to see whether there any good pieces of street art there. On the way, we saw this intriguing sight.

Pigeons perching on bird boxes

As the site is in shadow, it’s a little difficult to see what is going on here. Someone has affixed a set of bird boxes on the side of a building. They are intended for small birds and the pigeons are too big to access them but they are happy to use them as conveniently placed perches. Each box has its attendant pigeon, keeping watch for any chance of food!

Leake Street Graffiti Tunnel

The Tunnel used to be a good place to see street art and well known artists at work. The turnover of works was rapid so that every visit revealed new paintings. In recent years it has become less lively and today tourists and sight-seers easily outnumbered the artists.

We walked the whole length without seeing anything that impressed me. So I collected a couple of examples for the sake of completeness.

Abstract or illegible calligraphy?

A plague of “abstract” art has gone round the world several times since the beginning of the 20th century and it has naturally infected some street artists with its dire bacillus. Another popular strand of street art is calligraphy. This has become more and more complex to the point where it has descended into complete illegibility. Whether this piece is intended to be abstract or is illegible calligraphy is hard to tell.

Cartoon figure

This piece is happily neither abstract nor calligraphy. The cheerful little cartoon figure is perhaps familiar to readers of comics (or “graphic novels”) but is unknown to me.

We rambled a little further until we caught a bus near Victoria Station to return home with seeing anything further that I felt was worth recording photographically.