The sad end of Bharat's shop
Plus: We met with a local artist who is bringing science and art together
Good morning Wimblers — We’ve got a packed edition today, including news about the “Borough of Booze”, a man scaling a pole to protest traffic restrictions, a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and even an activity for Mother’s Day! On that note, happy Mother’s Day in advance to all our readers celebrating this Mothering Sunday!
This edition also includes the rather sad news that a local legend has been forced to close his beloved shop after 30 years of service. Bharat, who is something of a landmark in Wimbledon Park, has been given notice by his landlord to vacate the premises. Scroll down to see the full story and find out what you can do.
On a lighter note, our main feature this week looks at Cathy Corbishley Michel — a local artist who creates unique and eye-catching pieces of work. Her new exhibition is currently being shown at the Stableyard Exhibition Space in Morden Hall Park. It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s not to be missed.
I think that’s all for now. Happy reading!
News snippets 🏡
🚨 There was chaos in Wimbledon on Tuesday when a man scaled a pole on Abbey Road to protest Merton’s controversial new traffic restrictions. The incident was reported at around 11:40 AM and forced the road to close. Bizarrely, the man wasn’t arrested until 6:45 PM. A spokesperson for the council said: “Not only is this incredibly disruptive for large numbers of residents but is also a huge drain on the resources of our hardworking emergency services.” Read a breakdown of the events here.
The incident follows a spate of vandalism and violence linked to the Experimental Traffic Management Order on Abbey Road. In a press release last week, the council said that they had asked the police to investigate and will take action against anyone suspected of breaking the law. What do we think Wimblers? Are these new traffic restrictions good or bad for our area? Leave a comment below.
🍹 Merton has been branded the “Borough of Booze” after the council submitted an application to allow alcohol to be served from 9:00 AM in Morden Park. The council told Your Local Guardian that it wants to introduce a premises license for Morden Park to make event planning “more efficient”.
♻️ An elderly man in Raynes Park has been fined for recycling. The 76-year-old man was fined for fly-tipping after he collected discarded plastic bottles and took them to a recycling unit in Merton. Speaking to local reporters, Peter Dazeley said: “Apparently, I did the wrong thing by bringing big sacks that wouldn’t fit in the bins, but I thought the recycling trucks would easily be able to pick up clear plastic sacks filled with plastic bottles.” In December last year, he was fined £150. After appealing the decision, the council informed Dazeley that the fine would stand. Read more about his back and forth with the council here.
☕️ Urban Baristas is opening a new coffee shop in Wimbledon Quarter. The Aussie-inspired independent coffee chain is set to open later this year, and residents can expect their coffee to be served with the cool vibes of Bondi Beach in mind. Check out their website here.
Property of the week 🏡
This house — more of a mini-mansion — has a shed that’s nicer than most London homes. The modern home is built over three floors and offers luxuries such as a hot tub, built-in TV, en-suite bathrooms and a garden with a separate self-contained living space. But it’s not cheap. That’s right, Wimblers, we’re back with another toe-curlingly expensive property of the week. This outrageously opulent home will set you back £6.5m. Errr, how much for the shed on its own? Check out more photos here.
Local legend loses his shop after 30 years of service 🛒
After 30 years of serving the community of Wimbledon Park through his beloved shop, Bharat, 70, is being forced to close his doors. In a letter stuck to the shop’s front door, Bharat wrote: “I very much regret that I have to close my shop at the end of March 2025. This is at the insistence of my landlord who wants to refurbish the premises. I have requested to be permitted to stay until the contractors are ready to start work, but this request has been refused.”
Bharat’s landlord has not specified when or if Bharat will be able to return once his shop closes.
Bharat is something of a local legend to the residents of Wimbledon Park. In January, a large number of locals got together to give Bharat a special thank you on his 70th birthday — read all about it here.
If you want to help Bharat to keep his shop open until the contractors start refurbishments, you can contact his solicitor who will pass your comments on to the landlord: alb@mcglennons.co.uk.
Bharat’s closing remarks were this: “I would like to thank all of my customers for the support and friendship shown over the years. I hope at some future time, I will be given the chance to serve my local community again.”
The Wimble’s to-do list 🟥🟨🟩🟦🟪
🕺 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: Donny Osmond might not be coming to Wimbledon, but the iconic musical that he starred in is! Featuring the classics “Any Dream Will Do”, “Close Every Door”, this production is not one to miss. I still remember playing Potiphar in my Year 6 production of Joseph — ah, those were the days. Grab your tickets here.
Where: New Wimbledon Theatre
When: Tuesday 1 April - Saturday 5 April
🍷 Spanish Wines with Tapas: This is your chance to savour the delicious foods and wines of España. Think Rioja and Albarino paired with classic Iberian tapas. I, for one, am a huge tapas fan; get me a plate of sobrasada and some pintxos, and I’m a happy boy. Tickets are £35 per person.
Where: Jeroboams
When: Friday 28 March, 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
❤️ Ladies Before Lunch: Your free brunch meet-up is back! Get yourself down to Wimbledon Guild’s cafe for a natter and a slice of cake next Tuesday. To book your space, head here or call 020 8946 0735.
Where: Wimbledon Guild Lounge, Worple Road
When: Tuesday 1 April, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
🧶 Crafting Afternoons at St John the Baptist: Join the friendly group at St John the Baptist for an afternoon of crafting and chatting … for free! The items that you make will be used at the Church Christmas Fair.
Where: St John the Baptist, Wimbledon
When: Thursday 3 April, 3:15 PM - 5:15 PM
🥂 Mother’s Day Sip and Sew: Stumped for ideas this Mother’s Day? Look no further. Head over to the Dog & Fox to enjoy a spot of embroidery over a glass or two. Tickets are £30 per person and can be booked here.
Where: Dog & Fox, Wimbledon Village
When: Sunday 30 March, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
🐣 Wimbledon Quarter’s “Easter Extravaganza”: Meet the Easter Bunny and Alice in Wonderland on Saturday 19 April before crafting your own Easter basket and heading off on an egg hunt. Tickets are £12.50 and sessions run for one hour. Book your space here.
Where: Wimbledon Quarter
When: Saturday 19 April (one for your diaries)
Blueprinting History: What happens when science meets art? 🎞
It’s a sunny Monday afternoon as I stroll into Morden Hall Park. I’m here to meet Cathy Corbishley Michel to talk about her current exhibition, Blueprinting History: an exhibition of 25 years of work that deals with photography, exploration, history and science. Cathy is busy rummaging through some of her prints when I enter the Stableyard Exhibition Space. Large pieces of art hang from the white walls, and after a brief conversation about the work I am looking at, I ask Cathy to take me back to where it all started.
Photo credits: Cathy Corbishley Michel
Cathy Corbishley Michel moved from Bristol to Merton Park with her husband in 1983 and quickly found herself a job at St George’s Hospital: “I liked [the staff at St George’s], and they liked me, and they wanted me to stay — so that’s what I did.” I’m staring at a rather striking piece of work behind Cathy’s head as she explains how her artistic career began. She tells me that she’d already had a passion for making quilts and other forms of art textiles when she happened upon the technique of cyanotype printing: an early photographic process that uses UV light to create a Prussian Blue image on fabric.
“I met an artist at an exhibition who had written a book about the process. So I did some research and realised it involved two simple chemicals. Being a pathologist at St George’s meant that I had access to these chemicals … and even a darkroom to create the art. In fact, I’d been staring at these chemicals through a microscope for years without realising what else they could be used for.”
Cathy’s art is hard to describe; it’s not quite collage and it’s certainly not lithography, but whatever it is, it’s captivating. There’s something moving about looking at the faces in Cathy’s work — some old, some young, some famous and some forgotten — and seeing how Cathy has rearranged them to create a new narrative: “When I start a piece of work, I will read everything there is, talk to whoever I can, and then pick my pictures on the basis of who is important to the story — or who I think is important to the story.”
Much of her work deals with voyages, especially those from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Perhaps her favourite figure of this period is the explorer Ernest Shackleton: “I’d read countless books and seen several biographies about him. I particularly remember the Kenneth Branagh one that nearly broke the bank at Channel 4! But yes, I’ve always been fascinated by Shackleton. I did a whole series [on him] and then people started contacting me. I had one woman send me an email to tell me that she was married to the son of one of the doctors on board the Endurance with Shackleton. So they commissioned me to do some more work.”
I’m interested in how science and art coalesce in Cathy’s mind. She tells me that her medical background has helped her with the chemistry side of cyanotype printing, but science is not hereditary in her family. Her grandfather was a blacksmith, her father was also a practical man, and her other grandfather was quite the painter. In fact, her daughter — who also studies sciences at university — drew the faces for Cathy’s “Green Man” project. “We do things with our hands in my family. Being a pathologist meant that I spent a lot of time dissecting organs and tissue … the idea of sitting around just writing and diagnosing would have bored me.” I wonder aloud if there’s a thread between her career in dissection and her work as an artist. Cathy seems to think so, at least in terms of both vocations being “hands on” and “tactile”.
Though the images in Cathy’s work have been made by other people, the story created is very much her own. The people she picks and the images she uses are a reflection of how Cathy sees that period in time. “I’ve been mulling over a new project for a couple of years,” she tells me. “It’s about Gray’s Anatomy. I didn’t know Henry Gray had written the book at St George’s until I retired! The original book was illustrated by another surgeon at St George’s called Henry Vandyke Carter, who Gray didn’t pay and tried to have removed from the book’s credits. So my project is going to be called ‘Carter and Gray’s anatomy’ and will try to rehabilitate Carter’s image and reputation.”
Before I leave, I ask Cathy what she thinks makes her art unique. She pauses for a moment: “I would say it’s a style I’ve developed for myself. I’m not saying that I’m the only person in the world who works like this, but this is the way I like it — and that works for me. And others seem to like it too.”
Blueprinting History is showing until Sunday 27 April and is open to the general public from 10:15 AM - 4:00 PM. The exhibition is completely free of charge, and there are prints on sale in the shop.
Question of the week 🔍
Last week, I asked you which of these famous TV shows featured a scene at the New Wimbledon Theatre: 9% answered The Peep Show; 31% answered The IT Crowd; 24% answered Mr Selfridge; 14% answered The Inbetweeners; 22% answered Fleabag. The answer: The IT Crowd.
Q: Which of these is the oldest pub in Wimbledon Village?
You’re up to date 👋
Thank you for reading this week’s edition. I hope you enjoyed our recommendations and art-orientated feature. If you have any news, ideas or tip-offs, please do get in touch: zak@thewimble.com. It was sad to hear about Bharat’s shop, but hopefully with enough community support we can turn his situation around. Do share this newsletter, spread the word, and help us to grow The Wimble even more! Other than that, have a great week, happy Mother’s Day, and enjoy some well-deserved rest.
We too are sad about Bharat’s shop, our local newsagent for as long as we have lived in Wimbledon Park - 28 years! Thank you for featuring him, hopefully his landlords will take notice of all the support he has locally
You wonder which genius’s from Merton council makes these ridiculous decisions there’s been no issues with Abbey road for years and now its causing a major problem for local residents living on The Path off the Junction of the Morden Road.
All that diverted traffic wants to do a u-turn at the end of The Path which is a nightmare for local residents because the Junction already must be the most dangerous Junction in the area. The Junction is so badly designed the council can even not enforce any speeding or dangerous driving at this Junction.
The Council really don't care about the safety of Local residents and cyclists having to cross the dangerous junction and cars trying to exit and enter the Path, the increased traffic from B&Q and the Nelson trading estate has pushed local people to breaking point.
Despite the amount of accidents at this junction and the complaints to local councilors and Merton council no one from Merton council is listening to local concerns.
It's a major problem that the Council are turning a blind eye to.