Elephant and Castle Subway Murals

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

I went on a tour of the subways in Elephant and Castle last weekend, part of excellent Elefest - a festival celebrating a part of London that many usually don't celebrate.

The tour was led by David Bratby, the artist who painted the murals in the subways.

I've long loved the colourful tiles in the subways.



But I - shamefully - had never really paid attention to the murals. I should have!

They show scenes from global celebrations, like carnival in Rio de Janeiro, a Malaysian festival and from local events like a fete in Kennington Park.


Other murals show imagined scenes from local history, like an elephant being delivered to Surrey Docks, scenes from Shakespeare and scenes featuring Charlie Chaplin.


David said that he wanted the murals to be positive, to be bright and colourful in the dark underpasses. They certainty are, and in their own way, celebrate the area and its people and show it off to great effect.


1 comments:

Bill Hicks said...

Yes, i remember those wonderful tiles and some of the murals. I think these subways were all shut down in 2015-16, or earlier and I wonder if anyone managed to save any of this fabulous public art?
It reminds me a bit of the Paolozzi mosaics and tile work at Tottenham Court Road Station, and some (maybe not all) of that, I beleive , was rescued.