Pictured TOP – front row from left: Koula Shannon, Terrell Frank, Daniel Marta, Aaron Hammond (with his medal), Tarkan Enc, Terrance Frank; back row from left: Charlie Small, Cem Duran, Dave Harvey, Can Duran
Pictured Middle: Matthew Bull before his haircut
Pictured Bottom: Matthew Bull after his haircut

Published: 27 April, 2012

Check out the new vintage venue and artistic quarter

HAVE you been to Archway recently?

Sarah Cope is impressed with the number of interesting shops popping up near where she lives in Archway Road.

“Shops come and go here, partly because it’s so busy, noisy and dirty but there has been such a spring of shops coming together,” she says. “It’s become a go-to spot for vintage shopping and local artists. It’s a welcome change and they’ve made it much more appealing.”

Sarah’s pick of the new art shops include Souvenir, Quarter’s Café and Artway.

Mud, mud, glorious mud...

FINSBURY Park resident Linda Royles is regularly knee-deep in mud, building hand-made structures with cob, an ancient building technique that creates bricks from a combination of sand, clay and straw.

She is currently building an African hut and clay several ovens with schoolchildren from St Joseph’s Primary School, Archway. “It’s a gentle process and very forgiving so there’s no way to make mistakes,” she says. “And it uses the 57 million-year-old clay that London sits on.”

A head of the charity game!

MATTHEW Bull, youth club co-ordinator at the Highbury Roundhouse, has raised more than £600 for Centre 404, Holloway, a charity that provides services for children and adults with learning disabilities.

Bull has been using a number of different strategies to raise money including shaving his head and hosting two Sunday Roasts.

He is currently compiling a borough-wide joke book with all proceeds going to Centre 404.

Tournament success for young table tennis talent 

DESPITE only recently taking up the sport, Aaron Hammond, 14, won third place in a London-wide table tennis competition against more than 100 other young players.

The tournament was organised by London Youth, a network of the capital’s youth clubs.

Hammond regularly attends the table tennis training on Thursdays at The Underground youth centre on the Ringcross estate.

Dave Harvey, lead youth worker at The Underground, said of the players: “They all did themselves proud, with a positive attitude throughout the competition, and were excellent representatives of their youth centre.”