Znarr at Arcady Street

Charles Tunnicliffe (1901 - 1979)

Znarr at Arcady Street, 1934

Engraving on paper

Znarr at Arcady Street is an early proof for an illustrated edition of Henry Williamson’s The Peregrine’s Saga and Other Tales, first published in 1923. The engraving serves to illustrate ‘The Chronicle of Halbert and Znarr’, describing how Halbert, an East End urchin, dreams of escaping London. During a day away in the country, Halbert encounters Znarr, a carrion crow, and decides to take him back to his home in Elephant and Castle.

Znarr at Arcady Street captures life in the interwar East End. Tunnicliffe takes on Znarr’s perspective, with the bricks and sash windows forming orthogonals that guide the eye of the viewer. The townhouses loom over the figures in the street below, presented as shadowy forms within a claustrophobic environment. There is a harshness to Tunnicliffe’s style, emphasised by the use of hatching within the engraving.

Henry Williamson’s writings were reflective of his own experiences. Born in Brockley in 1895, he moved to Ladywell at a young age, experiencing the balance between urban London and the Kent countryside. During the Great War he served in the Machine Gun Corps - claiming to have witnessed the Christmas Truce. Having been discharged from the army in September 1919, he moved to Devon where he developed an increasing love for wildlife and the natural world, writing novels such as Tarka the Otter.

Yet, his wartime experience left him increasingly disillusioned with establishment politics. Drawn to the ideal of a lasting peace settlement in Europe driven by camaraderie between ordinary British and German soldiers, he became associated with a wide range of individuals; forming a friendship with T. E. Lawrence, he defended the Night of the Long Knives, joined the British Union of Fascists in 1937, and pondered the idea of flying to Germany to meet with Hitler during the Danzig crisis of August 1939.