Welcome to our second Autumn seasonal newsletter. In this edition you’ll find out what’s been going on in the Gardens, the Pottery Studio and the Print Room and Bindery. The volunteers have worked hard to create the success stories you will read below. We thought you’d enjoy hearing about the detail of how it’s all been achieved and celebrate the wonder and magic that is Bell House.
Bell House Garden - such busy bees….
We started 2024 with ambitious plans for the year and the pace of development has been pleasingly rapid. Our growing number of volunteers have all bought into our vision of sustainability and habitat variety and are instrumental in making it all happen.
The biggest visible change is the new, nectar rich, mixed flower border. Roughly sixty square metres of turf was lifted, much of it being relayed elsewhere in the garden. We received a grant from the London Beekeepers' Association and used it to buy many young plug plants. These were grown-on in the polytunnel and have planted up the new pollinator bed. Recently the association came to visit and were very pleased with what we’d achieved!
The polytunnel is now full of tomatoes and chillies and will prove very useful for overwintering young and more tender plants.
We have built a compost and pot store for potting up stock plants grown from seed and cuttings. Our revamped composting system, of more carefully shredding woody material and layering in grass and clippings, as well as torn cardboard is working well. With judicious watering and turning in situ it’s getting much hotter and breaking down far quicker. We hope to buy-in far less compost going forward.
Our open days have been well attended, adding income and attracting new volunteers. We have also sold a few plants, all proceeds helping to improve the garden.
Jarek has been working hard on our new gardener’s pavillion in the Pickwick garden. We hope this will be fully usable by the autumn, giving us a base to meet and plan, as well as shelter from the rain. A gardeners' reference library will be a useful additional asset. Our beautiful new tool and potting shed is up and just needs a little bit more fitting out before coming fulling operational.
Recently, a new round terrace has been completed near the bottom of the main garden. Pleasantly, it catches the evening sun and will be planted up soon. We have plans to landscape the main entrance by the pottery. This will tidy up the area and give us an opportunity to plant attractive drought resistant perennials and herbs. The south facing bed of the walled garden will be sorted out and permanently planted and the meadow areas improved. The current tabled potting area will be removed and more fruit trees planted. There are many areas of the garden that still need our attention and plenty of work for our growing clan of committed and enthusiastic volunteers. There is so very much to look forward to.
The gardens are opened every first Saturday of the month - do visit, wander at your leisure, talk to our volunteers about the work undertaken or find out about opportunities to get involved if you’re interested.
Author: Martin Cook
Photo: Sara Lloyd
Bell House Pottery - what an amazing success…
We have completed our first full year of operation. It’s been an amazing year. Since September 2023, we have run 129 courses attended by 870 students who have made several thousands of pots which are now (mostly) sitting proudly on the shelf at home or doing good service in the kitchen or dining room.
Student feedback has been so positive. Students say they love the calm environment of the studio, the view of the garden and the clear teaching. Many students have returned for several courses – building their skills term by term.
Our main offerings have been our 2-hour taster sessions and our 6-week courses, which have nearly all been sold out. We have also experimented with weekend workshops on Portrait Modelling, Throwing Big, Christmas Tea Lights and one Saturday and Sunday weekend workshop led by visiting teacher Claire Spindler on Throwing Bottles.
We have also extended Bell House reach into the community providing free ‘Let’s Clay Together’ events for the St Barnabas Ukrainian Youth Group, Kingswood Arts, Crawford School and for Southwark GP receptionists. One participant commented: ‘That was the best two hours I’ve spent in years.’
Looking forward, we are intending to repeat similar courses for the coming year. The first half term is almost fully booked. However we are also introducing two brand new courses:
i. A 4-week Throwing on the Wheel course for teenagers (13-17). This takes place on Saturday mornings from 21st September to 12th October
ii. A 2-day Life Sculpture workshop 19th to 20th October which follows on from Ben Swift’s Portrait Modelling course last year.
During the year we also hope to see the completion of the patio area behind the studio. The garage store was removed last term which opened up the view of the garden and once funding has been secured, the re-landscaping of the area behind the pottery is going to transform our view through the studio picture window and also improve disabled access to the studio. So much to look forward to.
While we employ professional paid teachers and technicians, it’s a core group of volunteers who have looked after everything else: marketing, finance, administration and much more. If you would like to join us (and be eligible for discounted places on our courses!) get in touch with [email protected].
Author: Jim Belben
Photo: Nicki Dowey
Uncovering the Secret History….
Whilst we’ve been applying the final touches to the new-build Pottery Studio in the Lodge, we’ve also been busy down in the basement of Bell House. This latest project has involved lorries delivering strange heavy lumps of metal to be lowered down the concrete stairs by teams of skilled men using chains and ropes.
Bell House is thrilled to announce an exciting new addition that is sure to captivate enthusiasts of traditional craftsmanship and vintage printing techniques. Two of the rooms in the basement are being transformed into what is being named the ‘Bell House Print Room & Bindery’. A home to a treasure trove of vintage letterpress equipment and book-binding machinery, including an exquisite 1860s Albion printing press, donated by the Type Archive in Stockwell and a whole suite of book-binding equipment from Dulwich College.
Individually these elements are things of wonder but put together they will lift what we can do. The joys of setting up the Bell House Print Room and Bindery are numerous.
Firstly it has enabled us to spend more time with the wonderful archivist Sharon O’Connor and to feed off her infectious enthusiasm for BH’s history. Secondly it has brought us joy at the sight of people’s eyes lighting up when they first see the newly-assembled Aladdin’s cave of inky delights. Thirdly the warmth of creativity that erupts during our bookbinding and printing workshops is utterly heart-warming and, finally it has enabled us to become a custodian not only for the heritage crafts we are helping to keep alive, but also custodians of the printing equipment itself.
When one enters through the Bindery and admires the panoply of bookbinding equipment generously donated by Dulwich College and then one turns a corner - and then everyone STOPS at this point - usually causing an instant bottleneck in the narrow doorway. It isn’t the sight of the 1930’s Adana handpresses or the 1950’s Showcards presses, impressive as they are, BUT they do not have the impact and ‘wow factor’ of our centrepiece, the jewel in our crown - our 1860’s Hopkinson Cope Albion printing press.
Our press, still unnamed, came to us when the Type Archive in Stockwell was sadly closing its doors. We were told it had gone to Stockwell from a printing firm called Clowes in the 1990’s but little more than that. There were at least a hundred years of missing history and no end of internet searches brought anything more to the surface – especially as there appeared to be no serial number anywhere on the vast metal beast that might help us.
But then some magic happened – Sharon spotted a partially obscured name on a sticker on the oar-shaped ‘rounce’ handle and I could see from the gleam in her eyes that THE HUNT WAS ON! Within a few short weeks she had tracked down almost the complete history of the press from when it was bought new to where it stands today. Apparently our vintage press had not only survived being in a bombed-out factory, lived through a terrible fire and possibly even flooding at one point. There is, no doubt, much more still to come to light and Sharon, Tania and are excited by what tales there are still to be told.
So while we continue our research do come and see us and meet the press on the first Saturday of every month when the gardens are open or, even better, book onto one of our courses and actually get to use it….but when pulling your first print do think of the thousands of hands before you that have added to its history…
Author and Photo: Simon Trewin and Tania Hurt-Newton
Bell House News from the USA…
Dating back to 1767, Bell House has a long and fascinating history with a surprisingly long reach!
Recently, an American professor contacted us. He is a historian of capitalism in the American Civil War and had come across our website because he is researching Charles Gowan who grew up in Dulwich and moved to Bell House in 1873, living here for more than 20 years with his wife, five children and a large retinue of staff.
Charles Gowan’s firm, Gowan & Marx, played a crucial role in financing American infrastructure such as railways and even had an important railway engine named after them.
American states were ideologically averse to taxation so they borrowed money to fund the building of these transport links, hoping to then benefit from the economic growth that would follow.
State indebtedness to firms like Gowan & Marx grew to huge proportions and then came crashing down as the states could not make their interest payments.
Professor Thomson told us that while many states tried to improve their financial positions, some doubled down on their borrowing much to the horror of international owners of the debt, like Charles Gowan.
Professor Thomson was hoping we might have some Gowan family’ papers which would help shed light on this era. While we do not, our historian Sharon O’Connor was able to tell him that Gowan banked with Smith, Payne, Smith, now owned by NatWest, so the NatWest archive might be able to help him.
She also put him in touch with a direct descendant of Charles Gowan who is checking family attics for relevant papers. We Have invited him to visit Bell House the next time he is in England which he said he would love to do.
Author and Photo: Sharon O’Connor