Visit the ultimate community artwork.
If you wander down Bermondsey Street to Tanner Street Park, you'll spot something that, at first glance, looks like a cross between an ancient ruin and a car boot sale.
That's Cornerstone — a public sculpture that’s part monument, part community party, part history lesson carved in rock. It's all wonderful.
This curious bric-a-brac artwork is made up of over 100 stone carvings, all crafted by local people — children, grown-ups, amateurs, beginners — in free workshops held on the Whites Grounds estate in 2013. The idea: everyone gets to swing a mallet, chip away at stone and see what emerges.
It's a real mash-up. Look close and you might see Easter Island moai, skulls, shells and even the likeness of Peppa Pig. Mixed in with the carvings are genuine lithic relics: bits of Victorian brick from London Bridge station, unwanted fragments of Southwark Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and even bones recovered from the Thames foreshore.
The eye-catching gallimaufry stands around 2.5 metres high and commands the corner of the park. It was unveiled in 2020 just as the community was facing its toughest test from Covid. The sculpture was partly crowdfunded, with contributions from Southwark Council and the Mayor of London.
Cornerstone was coordinated and assembled by artist Austin Emery. It forms a companion piece to 'Shared', a model of the Shard built with similar community spirit over on the nearby Tyers housing estate.
