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Banksy art 2005
Banksy stamped his mark opposite MacDonalds near Archway tube station, North London. Here Charles Manson in a prison suit, is hitchhiking to anywhere. This image was taken in 2005 by Justin Cormack.

Banksy art 2010
I took this image 5 years later in 2010. Manson's destination has been obliterated by black paint and the remains of a poster? But the original Banksy image lives on in Archway. It would never have lasted so long in Chelsea.

A friend of mine lives in Archway and I have often visited her. I have grown to love the area over a period of years (she’s lived there for a long time). We’ve both extolled its virtues on several occasions. But how do I explain this to others who inhabit Camden / Chelsea / Hampstead / [insert posh/trendy/expensive area of London]? What is there to do in Archway? Isn’t that the place where the Archway Tavern sits marooned among a circle of roaring traffic? Where there’s an unsightly tower block that’s next to the tube station? Well yes…but…there’s Banksy graffiti there.

I can understand how it feels to tell trendyites about the place where you are quite happy to live, knowing that they will turn their noses up at it. I lived in an unloved area of London (unloved by trendyites that is) for several years. On one occasion, when I told someone where I was living they said: “No-one lives in Leytonstone”. Leytonstone on the tube map is in zone 3 (the outer realms of central London), which might as well have been the twilight zone. According to trendyites, it nearly borders on Essex, for God’s sake, how can it be a good place to live? Only the chosen ones get to live in zone 1/2. Zone 3 and beyond is for the people you ignore at parties. I have now moved out of London altogether, so it really is the twilight zone, the no-go area that exists outside the metropolis (ie the rest of England). Archway, however, is on the borders of zone 2 so it qualifies as acceptable on that front at least. I digress…

Have you ever considered how areas become trendy in the first place? Artists and musicians make it so. Artists will live anywhere deemed to be affordable and unworthy of big business. They inhabit abandoned shops/warehouses/disused factories/former industrial sites, which are essentially no-go areas and make them desirable. Their sheer creativity makes these areas exciting, colourful and interesting again, drawing people back and bringing those grim surroundings back to life. This is evident in the US too, where areas of New York (such as parts of Brooklyn) are occupied by communities of artists and musicians, who live and work where others will not go. And then just as the area becomes a magnet for people to visit, the artists have to leave because it is unaffordable. Off they go to seek new fertile ground leaving the trendyists to pay their high mortgages.

So when another friend described Archway as “pleasantly grim” that hit the nail on the head for me. Its diversity and affordability makes it ripe as a target for artists. And yes there are signs of interest. Banksy has made his mark and because Archway is not scrubbed or painted clean, his graffiti has been there for a long time (at least 5 years by my reckoning). The painting’s only enemy is the weather that drips acid raindrops along its surface and modifications from other graffiti-ists.

Here is a list of signs of life in Archway (ie good pubs/eating places):

• Swimmers, Hercules Street
• Landseer, Landseer Rd
• Old Mother Black Cap (a real Irish pub, not part of a chain), which featured in the film Withnail and I

Evidence of creativity and diversity in Archway also comes in the form of:

• The Byam Shaw School of Art (which is now part of the University of the Arts, London)
• The Mosaic Shop (a great shop full of glittering mosaic tiles that has closed/moved to a mysterious location due to “the recession” – boo!)
• Holloway Arts Festival
• The Handweavers Studio (well in the area, ie Seven Sisters, down the road)
• The London Arts Therapy Centre
• Archway Herbal Clinic, who were involved in the Holloway Arts Festival
• The Better Archway Forum, who want to convert the Methodist Church to an arts centre

There are also arty cafes that come and go and there is a market on Saturday on the Holloway Road that sells second hand books/second hand furniture… The shops along the Holloway Road are “unique” and outside the corporate chain of brands that exist elsewhere. The area grows on you slowly, but you need to give it time, not an instant dismissal, to get to know its hidden gems.

Credits: Image top left: Justin Cormack click here for image licensing details; image top right: copyright Diane Ashmore, 2010.