Waterside Workshop.
During the 1970s, in England, there was a housing crisis. It resulted in many problems, one of which was many abandoned houses. Primarily considered a nuisance and eyesore, a small segment of the population saw these as an opportunity, mainly the homeless and students on public grants. So, they claimed Squatter's Rights and moved right in.
In England, the concept of common land goes back to Anglo-Saxon times when areas set aside for common use were utilized by any free person pretty much as they saw fit, including building a living shelter. These 20th-century abandoned houses were seen as a common land space, and the free folk of England took advantage of them.
This concept also extended to commercial buildings, and it was with Squatter's Rights, a group of artists and actors moved into an abandoned Victorian flour mill at 99 Rotherhithe Street on the South Bank of the Thames.
This building was a four-story structure built on the water's edge. An electric crane lifted grain to the fourth floor, and gravity pulled the flour through the grinding process down to bags on the ground floor. The milling machines were eventually sold for scrap (it was sad to see those beautiful machines go).
The artist group turned the ground floor into a theater on the Fringe Circuit that hosted many experimental programs. A carpenter with heavy machines occupied the first floor. The second and third floors were divided into small spaces and used by light-duty craftspeople such as silk screen artists, knitters, and instrument makers. That is how, in 1974, I became a resident of the Waterside Workshop. I moved into a space on the third floor overlooking the river with a gaping hole where the window used to be, which was common throughout the building. So, one of the prerequisites to moving in was to pay Adrian to make a new window, and in this way, the residents funded new windows for the structure.
When I left the workshop to move back to the USA, they presented me with a draw knife engraved with "To Danny Larsen from Waterside." I use a draw knife sparingly, but I have a good one when I need one.