Walking the Riverside Bookbench trail

With Little Sis at nursery, Big Brother and I seized the opportunity to head into London. Our destination was Waterloo Station which was the start of the Riverside Bookbench trail. This summer 50 unique BookBench sculptures, designed by local artists and famous names to celebrate London’s literary heritage and reading for enjoyment, have been placed around London. As most of this trail involved walking along the South Bank, which is flat, Big Brother took his scooter.

The first bench to find was at Waterloo Station – The World’s Biggest Flipbook by Jeremy Banx.

Then we had quite a long walk/scoot along the South Bank, where we passed Blackfriars station ticking it off our list, and to The Globe to see the Shakespeare bench by artist Lucy Dalzell.

We took in lots of famous sites along the way, Big Brother loved the Golden Hinde and just round the corner we found the Great Expectations bench by artist Ivan Liotchev and Paddington Bear bench by artist Michelle Heron, both at Montague Close.

Then it was a short scoot to The World of Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson at Hay’s Galleria. The Book Bench is inspired by a range of Scheffler/Donaldson characters, and was created by Axel Scheffler himself. Needless to say this was a very popular bench and probably our favourite. It featured all our favourite characters from Zog to Superworm, the Witch from Room on the Broom and the Gruffalo.

With the end in sight we carried on towards City Hall and More London where there were 6 book benches:

Discworld, Dr Seuss, Clarice Bean, How to Train Your Dragon, Through the Looking Glass and War Horse

Yay, we did it! We were slightly tired by this point so happy to head to London Bridge and home, just in time to pick Little Sis up from nursery.

The Book Benches can be found around London until the 15th September. More information can be found on the Books about Town website.