21. London Faces Patchwork – John Keats and Charles Brown

“Happy field or mossy cavern,                                                                                                             Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern”

This is the twenty-first square of my London Faces Patchwork. It is a patchwork of papers gleaned from the pavements of the city in which I live. There are twenty-five squares making up the whole piece. You can see it here.

John Keats, poet, was born in Moorgate in 1795. The Globe pub now occupies the site of his birth, a few yards from Moorgate Station. He died in 1821.

The Mermaid Tavern, of which Keats talks, was destroyed in The Great Fire of 1666. It is said to have been a haunt of Shakespeare, my 9th square.

To continue with the Fleet Street connection on some of these posts. Keats’ publishers, Taylor and Hessey, were at 93 Fleet Street.

This ink silhouette is by Charles Brown, who was born in 1787 in Lambeth.

The square is cut from a Keats House Events Guide.

The patchwork is in my shop.