When traveling along Lewisham Way past Lewisham College you might easily miss the famous 18th century ‘Stone House’ on the other side of the road. Despite its grandiose scale, this architectural gem is obscured by dense tree cover and flanked by a very long and sturdy exterior wall.
Unfortunately, whereas the Lewisham College’s exterior is well preserved, the wall of the Stone House has long been open house to anyone angry enough to wield a spray canister and wants to make a few splodges.
Who cares? Well, locals do. They have silently put up with these eyesores for years. It’s not that we hate graffiti. If these tags conveyed a sense of pride we might have been more supportive. Sadly, they are the anonymous ‘drive by’ shootings that target innocent victims who happen to make eye contact.
One might have hoped that Lewisham Council would have shown interest, if not taken outright action. After all, the wall is on the main highway connecting London with Dover. Some visitors will inevitably remember their first impressions of Great Britain with a mixture of feelings.
Anyway, as nobody had done anything about it for so long, the local St Johns Society decided to take direct action. On Wednesday a few of us made a start by overpainting the graffiti. We’ll see what happens next. It’s early days, but one thing we have learned from painting murals (we did the bridge across St Johns Station) is that high quality artwork can deter almost all tagging for a very long time. Watch this space. We will keep working on it and let you know where we get to.
