Sculpture trails and street art in London

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It has been a while since my last street art tour of the capital so I was keen to revisit both Leake Street and Brick Lane. I had a spare afternoon so decided to try and tie these in with the Mayfair Sculpture Trail and a couple of other sculpture pieces I had become aware of.

Another hot summer's day in June. Another long run. Another marathon.  

My route was planned and I left Lewisham and headed west towards Waterloo along the Old Kent Road. This is a bit of a boring route, straight and busy with heavy traffic, but it was brightened up by bumping into Bluey (see above photo). If you don't know Bluey check her out on CBeebies.

Once there I made my way down into the Leake Street tunnel below the railway station and took in some of the new street art. The tunnel is always evolving with new pieces being painted on top of older ones. Here are some of the newest including new Perspicere.

Perspicere







I emerged from the tunnel and headed across the Thames on Westminster Bridge which was heaving with tourists. The only way to keep running is to take to the road which I did. The traffic is going so slowly it isn't dangerous.

Passing the Houses of Parliament I crossed St James' Park and skirted along Green Park to the station of the same name. This was the beginning of the Mayfair Sculpture Art Trail. The trail involves all the galleries in the area and also has 19 outdoor exhibits. 

The first gallery I found had a free map and I used this as my guide to visit each of the works by different artists.



















The trail complete, I made my way via The Strand to St Paul's Cathedral and Paternoster Square where there is a new work by Gillie and Marc who are also responsible for the Chimps trail I recently ran along.

'Wild Table of Love' is a tableau of bronze cast animals sitting around a table with plates of food. Two seats have been left empty for passers by to join in. There are twelve animals in total including a bear, rabbit, zebra, giraffe, koala, hippo, elephant, chimp, lion, gorilla, rhino and a dog.


It was fun to see and watch families enjoying the sculpture and scanning the QR code to find out more about how to help endangered animals.

After a coffee I continued east to Aldgate and another installation I had seen online. Snails on Stones consists of several anthropomorphic molluscs - in other words snail shells with human limbs protruding. There is also a pair of crossed legs visible beneath the rock on which they sit.




As I was in East London I thought I would check out any new street art in Shoreditch and particularly along Brick Lane. There were many new pieces to see.






















Perspicere




I emerged from the labyrinth of back streets and headed south back across Tower Bridge and along the river to Lewisham. Until next time London.

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