Bruce Dickinson lands in the UK for a European Tour of The Mandrake Project, with two-thirds of his home country shows sold out as well as a significant number across Europe. The Iron Maiden singer has also been announced as Patron of The Blake Cottage Trust.
Bruce and his House Band Of Hell will cover music from Dickinson’s career on this tour, including Blake-inspired tracks such as The Book Of Thel, The Alchemist, Chemical Wedding, Jerusalem and Rain On The Graves.
The Mandrake Project features extensive reference to Blake, with references on the recent single Rain On The Graves coming from the mystical and arcane through to the more prosaic image of Bruce uncovering a replica of Blake’s grave at the end.
The Blake Cottage Trust owns William Blake’s only surviving house, in Felpham on the Sussex Coast, where William and his wife Catherine lived between 1800 and 1803. It was in the Cottage that he wrote the words to what we now know as the hymn Jerusalem. William’s three years in the village marked the start of the most important period in his creative life.
When The Blake Cottage Trust purchased the Cottage, it was found to have structural issues, and the thatched roof is now in urgent need of repair, meaning it is unsafe to allow access.
“William Blake has given me so much over the years,” Bruce said, “and I want to repay the debt by helping to restore the Cottage. Despite his impact on the world, there is no centre for Blake; Nowhere people can visit to see the place where he actually lived and worked during a key part of his life. I want to change this.”
2027 will be the 200th anniversary of Blake’s death and by then Bruce and the Trust hope the Cottage will be open to the public and become a centre for artists, writers and visionaries who wish to follow in Blake’s footsteps. The first step is to repair the roof at a cost of £80,000, with the cost of restoring the whole Cottage estimated at £1.5 million.
Bruce will be at the vanguard of the fund-raising campaign and will soon be launching an auction of memorabilia from both Iron Maiden and his solo career through the Iron Maiden Fanclub, including the William Blake gravestone as seen in the Rain On The Graves video.
Plans are also underway for Bruce to play a fund-raising concert, details of which will be announced in due course.
“We are delighted to welcome Bruce as our Patron,” Doug Nicholls, Chair of The Blake Cottage Trust, said. “Blake’s Cottage provides an important physical link to an artist and poet whose work helped shape Britain. With Bruce’s active support, I am sure that we will be able to achieve our aim of restoring it for future generations.”
To donate or find out more details, visit BlakeCottage.org/donate.
