Our Patch summer 2017
One of the beds in
Emery Walker House
arts & crafts
restored gem is
open once again
Having a laugh.
Clockwise from left:
Nina Conti, Shaun
Keaveny, Me & My
Bee and Fin Taylor
joke is this?
of Time Out’s comedy show of the year.
Or for something a little different,
catch the Gein’s Family Giftshop, a
quartet performing routines on the
lines of the League of Gentlemen.
Nish Kumar, a regular on Live at the
Apollo, is one of the best comedians on
the circuit, and performs a one-hour
show on June 3 at 6.30pm.
Tim Key, the stand-up performance
poet, follows at 8pm (tickets from £18).
The fourth and final day of the
festival, Sunday June 4, includes two
free workshops where wannabe comics
and sketch artists can pick up tips from
Lee Griffiths of the Soho Theatre.
Me & My Bee, by theatre company
ThisEgg, campaigns to save bees, one at
a time, by persuading people to join the
Bee Party.
Afternoon and evening comedy
headliners are Tom Allen,
Spencer Jones and Joe Lycett,
before The Guilty Feminist,
Deborah Frances-White, rounds
everything off at 8.30pm,
recording her comedy podcast
with a live audience, helped
by Susan Wokoma and Somalia
Seaton.
The Shepherds Bush Comedy
Festival, presented jointly by
Hammersmith & Fulham Council
and PBJ management, is a great
introduction to the new-look,
fully accessible Bush Theatre, with
all of the family-friendly shows free
of charge.
Visit bushtheatre.co.uk or call the box
office on 020 8743 5050.
A
fter an 18-month restoration,
the nation’s most perfectly
preserved Arts & Crafts house
has reopened. Sir Emery Walker’s
home at 7 Hammersmith Terrace
has a new roof, ensuring items such
as William Morris’s library chair can
be admired by future generations.
More than £1million has been
spent on the house where the
typographer and friend of Morris
lived from 1903 to 1933. Funding is
from the Heritage Lottery via Arts &
Crafts Hammersmith, working with
the William Morris Society.
The building reopened in
April with the cutting of a Morris
patterned ribbon.
Around 6,000 items were
conserved and catalogued while the
crew was at work, with everything
back in place, as it looked in the
time of Sir Emery (inset; picture
courtesy Emery Walker Trust).
The building is a superb example
of Arts & Crafts styling and an
exhibition space for Morris
textiles, wallpaper and
embroidery.
Prized items
include the library
chair (dating from
the 1600s), a stylised
portrait of May Morris
by Edward Burne-
Jones and ceramics by
William de Morgan.
Emery
But there are quirky
Walker
items, too, from the era
when Arts & Crafts leaders
gathered; a lock of Morris’s hair, a
mould of Philip Webb’s ears!
Guided pre-booked tours
of Emery Walker’s House at 7
Hammersmith Terrace are held
three times a day (11am, 1pm and
3pm) on Thursdays/Saturdays, with
numbers limited to eight per tour.
emerywalker.org.uk