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

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.

Sunday 13 October 2013

Touch DDS - Stories from my life

The London Perambulator (full length documentary)

A fascinating and fondly made portrait of the writer and deep topographer; Nick Papadimitriou. He takes us with him on walks to some of his favourite spots, while describing the landscape he also reflects upon his life and work. The film contains interviews with Will Self, Ian Sinclair and Russell Brand.

Saturday 12 October 2013

The DBC [Dread Broadcasting Corporation] - Great Pirate Radio Docs - part .. whatever 2

This West London station is considered to be the first black owned pirate station in Europe. Transmitting a mixture of political and social debate together with black music from various genres.
It has a little gem of an animation to go with it too!



Great Pirate Radio Docs - part .. whatever

 A great piece in a rig doctor's lab. Also really interesting section on Liverpool's Storeton FM, showing how they use phone boxes to run call-in shows before the days of pay as you go mobiles.

Tuesday 1 October 2013

Blue Boro Documentory - Lewisham

Finally found the full length version of this lovingly crafted film documenting Lewisham's urban music scene; Grime, Road Rap, R n'B etc. Youngers and olders talk about the boroughs black musical history and its lineage to the scene today.
 The doc also looks at the connection between 'the blue's' musical movement and the boroughs street gangs. It is interesting that the Woodpecker estate is constantly referred to as a birth place of the scene. Its one remaining tower stands tall on the landscape and is home to the Ghetto Boys, a street gang from New Cross who originally formed back in the mid to late 1970's.
 Theres a lot of talking heads in this doc but some interesting reflections and some solid bars from the likes of Big Cakes, Status, SRG [look for the old faded 'CASE' graffiti before his section, a local punk band active in the 1980's] and of course the mighty P Money among others.
 Shame Kozzie and Dot Rotten didn't feature and it would of been nice to see more of Saxon and the connection to those early days which Skeme touches on in his interview.
 Never the less, its great that this slept on scene has been documented in this way and younger mc's / producers are given a sense of history and context to the music they are making today.
 Blue boro stand up!



My Ends - Rapman Ft King Zion [Blue Borough]
 Why did they close down Yates?