Art on the streets, which requires no admission fee or particular effort to visit, can, sadly, be as overlooked as the quietest corner of an exclusive art gallery. Certainly, the art of Bruce Williams, muralist and painter, may have been passed by many times by the residents of the London Boroughs of Bromley and Lewisham without any recognition of this artist or the history of his mural work.

It was the announcement of Art UK's mural digitisation and engagement project which aims to capture 5,000 murals across the UK, that became the inspiration for my research into Bruce's work. This research began with a large mural in Bromley of Charles Darwin, the naturalist and geologist, three stories high, painted onto the side of a jeweller's shop, rubbing up against a fast-food outlet.

2005, painted mural by Bruce Williams (b.1964), High Street Bromley

The side of the building is exposed because of incendiary bomb damage in 1941 to 'Dunns of Bromley', a furniture shop.

The mural shows Darwin passively seated under a large tree, with references dotted across the image to Darwin's work on natural selection. Down House, his Bromley home, can be seen in the background.

Commissioned by Bromley Council, it was unveiled to the public in October 2005. I have walked past this mural many times and, like many shoppers on Bromley High Street, I had no idea who the artist was or the fact that he has a gallery in Whitstable on the North Kent coast. In 2024 I visited Bruce in his studio at the back of his gallery to ask him about his memories of completing the work.

Bruce no longer paints murals. On the walls of his studio, you can now find the sea greens and light brown shorelines of seascapes inspired by the Whitstable coast and the warm hints of orange, little pops of colour from still life oil paintings, that draw the eye, in the white-walled space.

Born in Chester in 1964, Bruce came to Whitstable to study art at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury and never left. Beginning as a pavement artist to pay his way through his studies, he remembers his first commission was a mural for a hospital in Glan Clwyd, North Wales in 1989, something he admits 'took forever!'

Bruce worked on the Darwin mural with his colleague Gary Phillips and was inspired by a research trip to Down House. It features Darwin's journey on the HMS Beagle and a reference to Darwin's friend and neighbour Sir John Lubbock, whose ethnographic collections reside in Bromley Historic Collections.

The mural took Bruce and Gary six weeks to complete. The council requested a young version of Darwin rather than the older, bearded figure we are more familiar with. Bruce recalled asking his father to become the model for the pose, sitting in a chair in his garden.

Twenty years on and the mural is still in very good condition, with Bruce commenting that it cost Bromley nearly as much to prepare and plaster the wall as he charged them for the painting.

'We were very thorough. We were meticulous, we probably did it five times better than it ever needed to be – way too much work.'

If you look closer at the mural you can also see two references to a previous mural by Brian Barnes that preceded Bruce's work. The Barnes mural celebrated another Bromley resident, renowned author H. G. Wells, who was born a stone's throw away.

H. G. Wells Mural within the Darwin Mural (detail)

It featured a 'War of the Worlds' alien towering over a suburban streetscape. A copy of that mural is pinned to the tree by Darwin in Bruce's mural, and on the top left, an image of H. G. Wells is a nod to Barnes who spent 40 years painting murals across London.

1986, painted mural by Brian Barnes (1944–2001), Bromley

An Independent newspaper article implied the mural was painted out because of H. G. Wells' complicated relationship with his hometown, but it appears the reality was more mundane, with the original mural becoming worn and needing replacement.

I had no idea when I visited the Darwin mural that it was in fact not the first sign of Bruce's work in Bromley. The 'Bromley Zoo', a menagerie of animals breaking out of their enclosures and setting themselves free on the streets of suburbia, was Bruce's first Bromley commission.

'Mural painters are like builders. You're painting a house on one street, someone comes up and says "Can you do ours?" and you find yourself stuck there for two years. That is what happened in Bromley.'

2024, painted mural by Bruce Williams (b.1964)

This artwork was part of the Bromley North Village Project that wanted to reinvigorate a less-visited Bromley North and aimed to lead shoppers from Hill Car Park through to the high street. Bruce has been back to touch up the odd zebra and lion over the years, but compared to when the mural was first painted, the flourishing local floral and fauna have strangely turned the zoo animals wild. They are getting lost in their pedestrian alleyway setting.

Photos of the Mural in Walter's Yard, Bromley

Hints of Bruce's Mural in Walter's Yard in 2025

On my visit to Bruce's studio, he finds other photographs of other alleyways he worked on including one in Walter's Yard. But on my return trip to Bromley, I find only the faintest remnants of a once Romanesque villa.

The more we talk, the more Bruce remembers of past projects: from an underpass in Ashford, to hoardings at Uxbridge Shopping Centre. He even painted a copy of a Caravaggio for 1970s pop star Manfred Mann's music studio and found himself knocking up the occasional film set, working on the 2004 film The Libertine, starring Johnny Depp.

Way before his Bromley work, Bruce tells me he was commissioned to produce a set of murals in a neighbouring borough to celebrate Lewisham Shopping Centre's twenty-first birthday. Completed in 1998, and once again working with Gary Phillips, you can still find the murals in a covered entrance on the Molesworth Street entrance.

Bruce's Mural at Lewisham Shopping Centre

The 40-foot by 12-foot 'Lewisham History Wall' ambitiously covers the first 2,000 years of Lewisham's history, another mural covers Lewisham's 'Rivers, Canals and Railways' and a final section – 'Postcards from Lewisham' – features a dazzling array of over 100 famous faces who were born, lived and found themselves making their mark in south London.

1998, painted mural by Bruce Williams (b.1964)

I managed to track down retired shopping centre manager Richard Merry, who recalled the whole project taking much longer and being much more involved than he ever anticipated. He told me of a growing mound of paperwork that recorded all the permissions, so that the likes of Kate Bush (whose career started at the Rose of Lee pub in Lewisham) and Henry Cooper (who grew up in Bellingham) were happy to have their faces up on the wall.

Lewisham Shopping Centre Murals pamphlet

It was Richard's love of history that led him to convince his managers at Slough Estates to pay for the mural, but in a local newspaper article at the time he admitted: 'We could have spent umpteen of pounds on champagne and competitions but when it's all over you've got nothing to show for your money... We want to create something of lasting value and The History Wall will stand the test of time.'

This mural was completed on panels in Bruce's studio before being erected on a metal framework that Richard tells me ended up costing more than the commissioned artwork. Whilst strictly speaking a mural is painted directly onto brick, it is an interesting comparison to stand in front of this artwork which brings a different feeling to Bruce's Darwin wall.

A pamphlet held in Lewisham archives lists all the references and mentions all the connections to the great and the good.

You can spot a copy of an image of Olaudah Equiano, who was sold by his master in Deptford in 1762, and you might not realise that Bruce also had to use a little bit of guesswork painting the Millennium Dome in 1998 before it had even been finished.

On my visit to Bruce's studio, he showed me his designs for the mural including a section commemorating the Empire Windrush arrival in 1948; seven of the embarking 492 passengers giving their forwarding address in Lewisham.

1998, mural design by Bruce Williams (b.1964)

Richard had fond memories of working to bring disparate local history groups together to work on the project, which took over a year to research. He explained to me that many associated themselves with their local area of Blackheath, Sydenham or Catford, not having a feeling of connection to the London Borough of Lewisham, that was founded in 1965.

One famous resident of Lewisham who was more than happy to celebrate his connections to the borough was comedian Spike Milligan, who grew up in Brockley and officially opened the mural on Thursday 26th November 1998. Both Bruce and Richard remembered the day well, with Spike reconnecting with an old school friend on the day who he had not seen since before they were separated by the Second World War. They regaled the crowd with stories of their younger years in the borough.

It has been fascinating seeing where a mural on my local high street has taken me. Bruce isn't sentimental about his murals. He knows they aren't meant to last forever. When I show him photographs of his Bromley Zoo murals, which are slowly disappearing into the urban jungle and a giraffe feeding from an air conditioning unit, he just tells me: 'I would say it's better than it ever was – it's evolving.'

Plans are in motion for a brand-new Lewisham shopping centre for a new generation. I wonder what will happen to Bruce's murals as the unstoppable progress of time comes to call.

Much more than simply paint on walls, Bruce's murals have been commissioned in celebration and to memorialise, to give a sense of place and pride in local streets. They won't be around forever, but I hope with Art UK's murals project and with stories like this, long after the paint has faded and new murals replace old, those memories and connections are still honoured and you take a little more time to look around you and take notice of the art on our streets.

Claire Madge, consultant, researcher and writer

With thanks to Bruce Williams, Richard Merry, Paul Redden, Lewisham Heritage and Bromley Historic Collections

See more of Bruce Williams' art on his website

Thanks to Jon Cardwell for the use of many of his photos in this story – you can see more of his photography on his website

Bromley Central Library has a display focused on Bruce Williams and his murals in 2025

This content was created as part of the Art UK Murals Digitisation and Engagement programme

Publication of this story was made possible with funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players