from the soon-to-be relaunched Lambeth Archives website
The Roebuck, 1972, now The Dog House
The King’s Arms, 1972
The White Hart, 1972, now the Tommyfield
The Cricketers, Kennington Park Road, 1945
the derelict Lamb & Hare public house, 41 Kennington Lane, 1950
The Black Prince, 1974
The Tankard, 1880
The Horns Tavern, which stood on the corner of Kennington Road and Kennington Park Road until 1965
The Tommyfield has cranked its boutique hotel credentials up a notch with an intimate in-house yoga session every Monday evening from local teacher Tim Mosley.
Tim offers a dynamic vinyasa flow class in the first floor Master Room. It’s a nice, calm space, usually used for the ABC comedy night or private events. You may even find a sprinkle of 40th birthday party confetti alongside your mat as a neat reminder of why you’re there in the first place. We have been along a couple of times and Tim is attentive and will provide a quick head massage at the end of the class if he thinks you’ve been spending too long at the blogging coalface.
Kennington is pretty well-served for yoga, including long-standing favourite Yogabelle at the RIBA Award-winning Siobhan Davies Studios, and Kennington Osteopaths for a gentler class (that is a bit of a tight squeeze – not one for the claustrophobic yogi).
Limited mats available, £10 per class
Tim Mosley is also available for private lessons.
Another of our Kennington Predictions for 2014 has come true – Ace Hotels have opened their latest outpost in Kennington.
Errrrr……OK, that’s not 100% true (yet), but Kennington does now have its own super-bijou boutique hotel in the form of six hotel rooms above The Tommyfield pub on Kennington Cross, and they’ve been decorated in a rather refined shade of industrial chic that isn’t a million miles from the Ace Hotel aesthetic. Our room was all white-washed brick walls, a chair that we’ve definitely seen in the Conran Shop, and a typographic ‘We not me’ print on the wall from the Changethethought collective.
Lovely bathroom too, with marble topped double sink and huge walk-in rain shower:
They launched without any fanfare at all in mid-May, and we were the first guests to stay in Room 3, although we have it on good authority that Russell Kane will shortly be lounging on the very same Super King Hypnos bed shortly.
A launch price of £119 per night per room (including breakfast) is reasonable for rooms that can more than compete with the very best that Airbnb can offer locally, minutes from the geographic centre of London.
If you stay on a week day it’s a DIY breakfast in your room from a pick of porridges, muesli, fresh fruit and juices, and our favourite Teapigs teas, plus a Nespresso machine.
At the weekend, guests breakfast downstairs in the pub from a more extensive menu, available until a very civilized 11.30am. But more of that later.
