When I lived on the canal in Lisson Grove, we would often head west along the canal towards Kensal Green and Notting Hill, either by foot or narrowboat.
Whenever we did, we’d pass a small sculpture garden of garden ornaments and gnomes on the offside (non-towpath side) of the canal. This occuped a thin strip of land between the canal and a brick wall, which seemed to be the back of some housing. Every time we passed, the sculpture garden would have grown a little and paintings and mirrors started to appear on the wall itself. As far as I recall, we never saw anybody in the garden – it just seemed to mutate organically, as if the statues were breeding during the night.
I left the canal more than a decade ago and rarely returned, until a couple of years ago when work took me once more to Kensal Green. I was delighted to see that the statue garden still survived. Indeed, it had thrived. What had once occupied a single house now took over an entire terrace with what appeared to be more than a hundred statues and other decorations.
I took a quite bad photo, which gives you a vague idea of what it looks like.
I never knew who made this garden. It just seemed like one of those glorious London eccentricies that somebody willed into existence and then nurtured, simply because they could. They had the time and the talent and the inclination, so why not. They may will have had their own internally coherant reasons for creating it, but that scarcely mattered as it brightened the canal and the lives of everybody who passed.
Today I learnt much more via twitter. The garden is called Gerry’s Pompeii and was created by Gerry Dalton, who was born in Ireland in 1935, moved to London in the 1950s and after a career as a postman, factory worker and gardener retired and began to create his garden. As you might expect when you think about, this was not contained to the canal. This alternative universe began in Gerry’s own house, took over his garden and then spilled on the canal. By the end, it featured an astonishing 200 concrete and mixed media sculptures, around 170 wall mounted works and a 50 meter long mural.
If he had not died this year, one imagines that it would have just kept growing all the way to Camden. This video gives a great taste of what he created.
A crowdfunding project has now started to try to save Gerry’s Pompeii, either by raising £700,000 to preserve it in situ by purchasing his home from the housing association that owns it, reconstructing it elsewhere, or removing, storing and archiving it for the future.
If you can help, give some cash here. And get down to the canal to see this before it goes, as it’s a real London gem.
The Great Wen 