City Lights

The City contains a lot of wrought iron, some of it genuinely Victorian and some just trying to look as if it might be that old! This light is situated in a very new part of London, which I have just discovered is called Bazalgette Embankment. Now Joseph Bazalgette was a Victorian engineer who built most of London’s original sewers, and the site of this (and many other) lights is a new open space surrounding a well disguised vent to a recently built overflow sewer called the Tideway Tunnel.

Given that this light was probably put in place since my last-but-one trip up to town, I suspect it is pretend Victoriana, albeit still interesting to draw. I’m not entirely sure that my idea of a pen sketch foreground with a watercolour wash background really works here, but you never really know these things until you try them!