Our Boxpark neighbours, Moo have blogged about our transition to bricks ‘n’ mortar (or metal ‘n’ nails!) in our new container store.
Read all about it: ‘Shop talk with The Brokedown Palace‘
The Brokedown Palace now at Boxpark
We have opened a store at the Boxpark pop-up mall in Shoreditch. Boxpark is a shopping mall made entirely of old shipping containers – perfect for our cabin vibe.
“The Brokedown Palace is the only place in east London to stock the cult Swedish outdoors brand, Fjällräven, including the brand’s iconic Kånken backpack and its sought-after Greenland Winter jackets. Other brands in store include Pendleton, Out of Print, Sitka, Makia and North Sea Clothing.”
Come see us in Unit 24!
The Brokedown Palace and Moo
We’ve been featured on Moo’s Inspiration Gallery with our great packaging and gift wrap designs, created for us by illustratorWilliam Exley.
Fjällräven at the Scandinavia Show
The Brokedown Palace partnered with Fjällräven to do their stand at the Scandinavia Show 2013.
The Scandinavia Show is the only UK show dedicated exclusively to showcase the best of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The show incorporates Scandinavian design, travel, lifestyle, fashion, culture and food.
This year’s venue was the stunning and historic Tobacco Dock, right on the River Thames; built in the early 19th Century as a secure bonded warehouse for the receipt and storage of tobacco from the New World.
We had a great time and met lots of lovely customers. Thank you Fjällräven for inviting us!
Ian and Dee Dee from The Brokedown Palace
Tobacco Dock entrance
Adam from The Brokedown Palace with the colourful wall of Kånkens.
Andi from Fjällräven at his Wax Station, demonstrating how to re-wax a Greenland Jacket with Fjällräven’s unique Greenland Wax.
This customer came in with his 23 year old Kånken – looks good as new! His wife had just washed it so it’s a little crumpled. She said she always just throws it in the washing machine. They were buying more Kånkens for their young relatives.
Also in our stand were Grower’s Cup Coffee from Denmark. Here Adam from The Brokedown Palace and Andy from Fjällräven are sampling a cup.
Dee Dee from The Brokedown Palace cuddling Moomintroll.
The Danes are invading Swedish Fjällräven!
Joe from Fjällräven looking super snazzy in a UN Blue Fjällräven Numbers Jacket No.68 and matching trousers.
Spooktober
William Exley, the super talented illustrator who did all our branding has started a ‘Spooktober‘ Tumblr – ‘A horror themed image for each day of this most Hallowed and Weeniest of months’.
This one’s inspired by Pieces (1982) – check out the rest at spoooktober.tumblr.com if you dare…
Organic Cotton at the Brokedown Palace
Organic cotton is usually rain-fed, not irrigated, so it uses a lot less water. It’s grown without the use of toxic pesticides and insecticides. Farmers use composted manures and cover-crops to replace synthetic fertilisers. Innovative weeding strategies are used instead of herbicides. Beneficial insects and trap-crops are used to control pests. Some farmers use natural pesticides such as chilli – just like in our wildflower Seedballs!
Agrocel cotton farmers – where the organic cotton for our People Tree dresses comes from
Some of the organic cotton products we sell:
Building a Future for Africa Bake Off
We were invited to take part in a bake off organised by friend of the palace, Lizzie White to raise funds for BAFFA (Building A Future For Africa).
BAFFA is an Aid Camps International project, in which a team of fifteen volunteers will travel to Cameroon in January 2014 for three weeks to build a school.
Our entry was a chocolate Brokedown Palace filled with cookies – and it was the winner!
Here’s how we did it…
The cabin is made using a Lakeland ‘Fairy Tale Cottage’ mould. We melted the chocolate in Granny’s mixing bowl, over a pan of boiling water.
Then we poured the chocolate into the mould and left it to set. It’s best to do this at room temperature, which takes about 2 hours. You can speed it up in the fridge but you risk the chocolate blooming (turning white-ish).
When the chocolate had set we placed the pieces on a cake board and piped melted chocolate along the edges to cement them together. We then decorated it with icing flowers and desiccated coconut.
For the miniature cookies to go inside we used Granny’s super easy recipe:
Ingredients
- 100g of sugar
- 100g of butter
- 1 tbsp of golden syrup
- 75g of self raising flour
- Chocolate chips
- Another 75g of self raising flour
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Mix the sugar and butter together to make a paste.
- Add the golden syrup.
- Add the first 75g of flour and chocolate chips. Mix together.
- Add and mix the last 75g of flour.
- Arrange on a baking tray in small blobs, don’t flatten them.
- Put them in the oven at 180 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
The cabin can be made from gingerbread too. We’ll be trying that next time…
If you’d like to donate to the project you can do it on Lizzie’s Aid Camps page.
Happy Birthday George Orwell
It’s George Orwell’s birthday so we’re offering 15% off our 1984 and Animal Farm Out of Print T-shirts. Use code ORWELL at checkout.
Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was born June 25, 1903.
Lost in London Pop-Up: Bringing Outdoors In
We’ve just started stocking the fantastic Lost in London book, so we were excited to see they were doing a ‘bringing the outdoors in’ pop-up event at Hackney City Farm as part of Chelsea Fringe. We went along to have a look and found some wonderful stallholders and most importantly delicious cakes!
Lost in London’s own stall with all their publications
The Borough Belles WI with their amazing stall of homemade cakes. I had a luscious rhubarb crumble cup cake.
Marshmallow Bunny made by The Borough Belles WI – apparently it’s traditional in Australia!
We loved Sarah May Rogers hand made ceramics – her bone china leaves are exquisite and made using real leaves.
The lovely folks from Peachy Gardening – an East London based business that offers friendly reliable gardening services. They were selling some gorgeous ready-planted pots at the event.
These greetings cards from Urban Ladybird are genius – they have seeds in the card and can be planted straight into the ground.
Ian marking his favourite green space on the map – he chose Wick Woodland which is opposite The Brokedown Palace.
No trip to Hackney City Farm is complete without visiting Larry the Donkey, the only donkey we know of to have his own Twitter account. Follow him @hackneycityfarm
Love the Lea
CITIZEN SCIENTISTS – WATER TESTING
The Brokedown Palace is on the banks of the River Lea in Hackney Wick, London. The Lea and the Lea Valley were the original inspiration for The Brokedown Palace, and continue to inspire us everyday. Parts of the Lee Valley Park are a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) as there are many rare species of plants and wildlife here. It’s amazing to have such a space in the heart of the city, and we feel it’s very important to protect it.
Sadly the River Lea and its tributaries are the most polluted in Britain – sewage, chemicals and oil wash into them every day. This is an issue close to our hearts, so when we heard that Theo Thomas from Thames 21 Charity had set up the Love the Lea campaign we contacted him to see if we could get involved. He suggested that we could form part of a water testers group he was setting up – Citizen Scientists who would regularly test the water at different points along the river. This data could be used to form an early warning system, and build up a clearer picture of the Lea’s health.
We formed a team and Theo came round to give us our testing kits to show us how it’s done.
Adam getting some river water for us to test
Filling our test tubes with river water
Adam and Rosie putting the tablets in the test tubes
Theo explains how to get the results
Phosphate level was 2, the blue looks pretty but it’s bad news for the Lea.
A Phosphate level of 1 is considered ‘bad’ by the EU Water Framework Directive. We can all help reduce river Phosphate levels by buying Phosphate free cleaning products, dishwasher tablets and detergents.
Nitrate level was 20. This indicates sewage and chemicals in the water.
Not surprising with Deephams sewage works up river at Tottenham regularly (legally) discharging raw sewage into the Lea. Also the many domestic misconnected pipes which are sending sewage into the river. Excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus can cause reduced dissolved oxygen levels in the water, depriving other organisms of oxygen. Increased levels of these nutrients have also been known to cause toxic algal blooms, it also encourages duckweed. The Lea in summertime is covered in duckweed. Excess duckweed is bad for the river because it means that natural oxygen transfer from the atmosphere is greatly reduced, which is very damaging to fish.
The Ph was 8 which is within the normal range.
We’ll continue to test the water every two weeks and keep you up to date with the results.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
- If you see anything in your local area that looks like pollution ring the Environment Agency incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60. They will investigate it.
- Pledge to LOVE THE LEA with Thames 21
- Use Phosphate-free household products – most supermarkets do a range or try Ecover
- Download this handy LOVE THE LEA information leaflet and share with friends and family
- Check your household connections – most people whose pipes are misconnected have no idea they are discharging sewage and waste water into our rivers. More information on connectright.org.uk
- Like LOVE THE LEA on Facebook
- Follow @TheoJThomas on Twitter and hashtags #lovethelea and #leatest to keep up-to-date with the LOVE THE LEA campaign
For more information contact Theo Thomas: theo.thomas@thames21.org.uk 020 7093 6385