STOCKWELL MEMORIAL MURAL

 

STOCKWELL MEMORIAL MURAL

      The Stockwell Memorial Mural covers a circular building which was the entrance to one of eight deep-level London air-raid shelters constructed during the Second World War. 
     The mural, in Stockwell Memorial Gardens, was painted in stages between 1999 and 2001, created as a community art project led by muralist Brian Barnes, working with Myra Harris. Its design, featuring images with links to the local area, was primarily influenced by Stockwell school children.
     The rotunda sits next to the Stockwell War Memorial clock tower. Unveiled in 1922, it lists the name of 574 local men who were killed in the First World War.
     The shelter is below Stockwell Underground station, and comprises two parallel tunnels, each approximately six times the length of the current platforms. The total capacity of the shelter was around 4,000 people.

       The mural uses the concave walls of the structure to show the poppy fields of France. The words from poet Laurence Binyon's ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them’ are written across the top alongside the familiar image of Lord Kitchener. Some of the artwork has seen better days. One would hope that Lambeth Council don't wait too long before commissioning a refurbishment.
     Other depictions include the Empire Windrush, the boat which brought the first generation of Caribbean migrants to Britain. Its name has now become synonymous with immigration during this era; people came to fill labour shortages. Many of the ‘Windrush Generation’ settled in Stockwell and nearby Brixton - and were widely employed in transport, postal and health services. 
     This statue celebrating the Windrush Generation was unveiled at Waterloo Station in 2022 by the Duke of Cambridge, now Prince William.
      A whole section of the mural is dedicated to WWII secret agent Violette Szabo who grew up in Stockwell. The panel, completed in 2001, was unveiled by her daughter Tania and Virginia McKenna who played Violette in the 1958 film Carve Her Name with Pride.
    Violette Szabo was a British-French SOE (Special Operations Executive) agent during World War II, parachuting into occupied France to organize sabotage and resistance. She was captured, sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and executed by the Nazis at just 23. Szabo was awarded the George Cross, bestowed posthumously in 1946. 
      Other memorials to Violette Szabo include this bust in front of Lambeth Palace. And there's a plaque at 18 Burnley Road in Stockwell where she once lived.
 
     References to other famous people with Stockwell links can also be seen, including Roger Moore, who grew up in the area, and Vincent Van Gogh who spent six months living there.
     Moore (1927-2017) lived at 4 Aldebert Terrace. There is no English Heritage blue plaque on the house as to qualify the subject has to have died more than twenty years ago.
     A short time before Roger Moore died I was sitting a couple of rows in front of him at a concert of Leslie Bricusse music. As we headed for the bar at the interval, I motioned to Roger to go ahead of me - whilst resisting the urge to say "after you, Mr Bond" - which might have raised an eyebrow.
     My good friend Steve Gordon also has a Roger Moore story: “I was delivering stuff to Pinewood and found myself on the set of The Man with the Golden Gun. Shooting broke for lunch and I'm staring at a videotape machine. There's a fight sequence spinning backwards and a shattered mirror 'glues' back together. A guy next to me says 'it's amazing what they can do nowadays isn't it', I turn and it's Roger Moore.”

     Vincent van Gogh briefly lodged at 87 Hackford Road. There is also a street in Stockwell - Van Gogh Walk - named after the artist.
 
    Also in Stockwell Memorial Gardens is England's first permanent public statue of a black woman. Unveiled in 2008, Bronze Woman was inspired by a poem by Stockwell's Cécile Nobrega who campaigned for many years to establish the monument. It  was designed by sculptor Ian Walters, and after his death completed by Aleix Barbat.



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