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.

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

Sunday 24 January 2010

R.I.P LEE

These two clips from the documentary film 'Dark Days'[2000] make up one lovely scene with these two great charactors; ? and Lee. This is the only scene in the film with Lee in it.
It is told that Director Marc Singer found Lee one day, over the course of his years of exploring, filming and living in the tunnels of New York's subways system.
He was far down one of the deepest tunnels. He was sitting cross legged and with his eyes closed, in the middle of a live rail track. When asked what he was doing he replied, "Waiting for the train." Marc talked him off the track and filmed this scene with him that evening.
The next day Lee was found dead. He had been hit by a train on the same piece of track where Marc had found him the day before.




Some nice video footage of some legendary London names ft. DDS and FDC Crews. [Collaged various footage]

Devlin and Deeperman Spittin Bars/ Dagenham, Essex, U.K/ 2007 [Patterns and Slang] They murk the second track especially! :-]

Some video bookmarks [from about 6 years worth of back log]






The kings of the mic explore the boundaries of DnB, garage, 2step and Grime.



Uk Hip hop legends bedroom bar, in this great piece of cam-corder footage.



90's UK ragga Don-Gar-Gan Cutty Ranks. A important figure in UK Mc history. His acapellas are often used in old school jungle tunes and his original ragga tunes included in sets by contempory DJS in the current London dance and bass music scenes.