In 2025 Ealing Culture is installing six Poetry High Streets signs around Hanwell, Oldfields Circus, and Pitshanger Lane. The signs were designed by de Pass Montgomery to celebrate the materials, typography, and architecture of each high street, and their messages are drawn from the words of local traders and residents who shared their thoughts and their creativity with three commissioned poets: Laurie Bolger, Mr Gee, and Shagufta Iqbal.
Poetry High Streets was funded by the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund with the aim of delivering a poetry project that would build engagement with local businesses and celebrate some of Ealing’s unique high streets.
On this site:
- Follow the Trail—find out where the installations are and what they look like (see below)
- The Poetry High Streets Story—what’s it all about?
- The Videos—meet the poets and discover the businesses and creativity on the high streets
- The Poetry—strings of words broken into lines harbouring evocative imagery
Poetry High Streets started in autumn 2024, when poets Laurie Bolger, Mr Gee, and Shagufta Iqbal began visiting Pitshanger Lane, Oldfields Circus, and Hanwell. Between October 2024 and February 2025, they dropped into shops, cafes, hair salons and other businesses to meet the people that work there and find out about the stories, the characters, and the creativity on the high street. Read the Poetry High Streets story…
Follow the Trail!
Use this map to find out where the installations are located. Further details coming soon.
Orange Are the Bricks
Location: corner of Pitshanger Lane and Albert Road, on the side of Co-op Ealing Funeralcare (what3words///sing.toys.scales).
Installation Date: 2 June 2025.
Description: ‘ORANGE ARE THE BRICKS / WHITE CRUSH IS THE BLOSSOM’. Hand-painted lettering on a tiles, wall-mounted.
This Going Away
Location: windows of Pitshanger Community Library, Pitshanger Lane (what3words///slices.ticket.regime).
Installation date: 10 September 2025.
Description: ‘THIS GOING AWAY AND COMING BACK AGAIN / THE LOYALTY OF A PLACE’. Textile window hanging.
How Far We All Have Come
Location: lamp column outside 79 Oldfields Circus (what3words///beans.wants.hours).
Installation date: 22 August 2025.
Description: ‘HOW FAR WE ALL HAVE COME’. Illuminated sign attached to lamppost.
Oldfields Love
Location: window of Golden Crust Bakery, 21 Oldfields Circus, UB5 4RR (what3words///tribune.open.famous).
Installation Date: 29 October 2025.
Description: ‘THERE’S ALWAYS OLDFIELDS LOVE’. Gilded lettering in shop window.
Village in the City
Location: Station Approach, outside Hanwell Station (what3words///tribune.open.famous).
Installation Date: 9 September 2025
Description: ‘THIS IS THE VILLAGE IN THE CITY’. Painted sign on wall.
The Music
Location: planting bed in between Broadway and Uxbridge Road, outside Hanwell Halal Meat & Groceries (149 Uxbridge Road, W7 3ST). (https://w3w.co/drain.solo.front)
Installation Date: 8 October 2025.
Description: ‘THE MUSIC / THE FLAVOURS / THE LANGUAGES’. Freestanding illuminated sign.
Hanwell
Read about the two installations for Hanwell, The Music and Village in the City, here.
