The Fitzrovia mural

It’s hard not to notice the huge mural adorning the side of a house just off Tottenham Court Road but I suspect many people walk on straight by it.

Created in 1980 and painted by Mick Jones and Simon Barber the mural has looked over a piece of common ground gifted to Londoners for use as open space. The space, Whitfield Gardens is now a place to sit and relax for shoppers needing to take a rest or tourists just exploring the area.

The mural contains themes from the era in which it was painted and retains memories from the time as a result. There is a scoffing portrait of the conservative politician Horace Cutler who was the leader of the Greater London Council. He is pictured as a greedy vampire with construction plans and a knife in his hands. Also the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who lived for a while in Fitzrovia, is caricatured in the mural.

Arthur Fowler, masquerading as a butcher, to the bottom left. But he’s not real, nor a Fitzrovian, and he post-dates the mural by five years. Nuts. (Also, see if you can spot the hammer and sickle in the top left. Reds!)