Author Archives: Kennington Observer

About Kennington Observer

Surreptitiously observing Kennington, including the suburbs Vauxhall, Oval, Walworth, and Elephant since 2012. We're fiercely independent and never boring.

The Era of the Adventure Playgrounds

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From the archives, the second of our month of best history posts

If you’ve ever had a mosey around the Ethelred Estate and the former Lillian Baylis school site (now luxury flats but don’t get us started) you’ve probably noticed a rather fanciful and fenced off adventure playground. It’s a smaller, updated version of what was a much more sizeable playground on the site, and we’re here as always to tell you of its fascinating history. 

Junk playgrounds took off after WW2 and our offering was located on the site of a bombed school building. Forward thinking folks thought it would be clever to use these fallow sites as areas for kids,  and also wisely substituted ‘junk’ with ‘adventure’  With a little help from the LCC, a determined coterie of Greater Kennington volunteers and children developed the large site mostly by using discarded detritus from the war. The concept was, instead of covering the site in concrete, to create a system of walkways, tunnels, ropes, enormous slides, and old tyres to play in. Included in the new Lollard Adventure Playground were handmade huts for children to undertake crafts when the weather wasn’t so great. The kids even grew vegetables there. 

Now, to our 2023 eyes unsupervised nine year olds playing with giant bonfires and pushing around rusting cars might not be our precise definition of ‘safety’, but it must have been great fun for the kids. The concept at the time was to encourage children to learn by expressing themselves while also learning to avoid risks. This, so the thinking went, would foster confidence and independence. Our adventure playground occupied more or less the entirety of the school site and entertained thousands of local children until, sadly, Lambeth wanted the plot back for a school in the 1960’s. At least it wasn’t for luxury flats.

Due to a lack of funding from Lambeth, the playground was mostly closed in 2013 and since has served as a haunting and eerie relic of its former self, now rather resembling a sad and deserted amusement park from a Scooby Doo* episode. The playground is now run by a noble but underfunded charity and is only open on very specific days for free access play. The mission remains to provide a unique space in which children can enjoy varied and creative play in a homemade space. If you want to learn more they would love to hear from you. 

*If you are too young to know who Scooby Doo is then please ask an elder. 

The Great Stink(pipe) of Kennington

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From the 2020 archives, the first of our month of best history posts

Do you wake up at night thinking ‘will the Runoff EVER do a feature on sewage and foul smells’? Well dear reader, if so your time HAS COME as we’re here to reveal the purpose of that black crowned column in Kennington Cross.

The Victorians gave London many architectural gems; the Houses of Parliament and St. Pancras to name a few. In Kennington they endowed us with probably London’s most attractive example of a  Stinkpipe, and that is what we see in Kennington Cross. If you’re wondering what we’re talking about, the Victorians solved many problems but struggled with sewage for years. This was called The Great Stink of London and resulted in some radical methods to solve it. Stinkpipes were one such concept and were installed around London to divert the smell of poo and their more noxious byproducts. The concept was to elevate the odours from sewers and subterranean rivers above sensitive Victorian noses.

January 2025 update – Fans have also made us aware that this Stinkpipe might have also been used to release fumes from the toilets below. We know you relish such detail.

So while the Great Stink might have been deplorable, it realised great advancements later in the industrial age, such the creation of the Embankment and most recently the mighty Thames Super Sewer. And such is the preoccupation with Stinkpipes that someone with apparently a great deal of time on their hands has mapped them all out.

If you share this interest and also have time on your hands you’ll notice more examples of Stinkpipes in the middle of Vauxhall and in a tiny pocket of Kennington Park, below.

The Rosy Hue

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In our never ending pursuit of gastronomic excellence in Greater Kennington (read – to find a flimsy excuse to cram food in our face), we recently ventured to independent gastropub ‘The Rosy Hue’. The Hue opened in Elephant Park in 2022 and is part of a small south London based chain. Since then, its positioned itself as a kind of sports pub with a separate gastro restaurant. The upshot being can you can’t really hear the pub in the restaurant. 

For this dinner your scribe was joined by partner in crime Karen from Finance and her friend from Milan, Gabs. Karen was pondering the burger versus fish and chips, and when the waiter indicated that the fish and chips was the more substantial plate, it was music to Karen’s ears as she was keen to break her January resolution.  This certainly proved to be the case with a lightly battered fillet of haddock taking up half or more of her plate and sitting atop crispy golden chips. It also came with a small bowl of crushed minted peas and some homemade tartare sauce. As pub fish and chips go, this was a very creditable offer. The fish was fresh, the batter was light and perfectly crisp, and the chips were good. 

Your scribe opted for the daily special, which was steak and ale pie. The pastry was sturdy and buttery, and topped with some seeds. Inside the pie, the juice was a good combination of sweet brown ale and beef stock. The steak was plentiful and tender, and in the mix were small hints of bacon. It was served with some very creamy mash and well prepared tender stem broccoli. 

As for Karen’s friend, when his burger and chips arrived he commenced eating both with a knife and fork. Karen and your scribe looked at one another with bemused fascination, and I asked him if in Italy its customary to eat a burger with a fork. Without looking up he retorted ‘yes, everyone does’. As we were leaving, Gabs was asked if he’d like to share his fork eating burger experience with our multitudinous readers. He quipped, with Milanese aplomb, ‘not really’.   

But the burning question is…will the Rosy Hue make our top 10 list of best places to eat in Greater Kennington 2025?

Cable Cafe & Bar

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As many Greater Kenningtonains spend a few days working from home, we thought we would up our lunchtime review game by checking out Oval staple ‘Cable Café’ at the top of Brixton Rd. By all the brick a brac you might think you’ve stumbled into dear Aunt Flo’s house clearance after she refused to let anybody in for 40 years, but what you’re getting is a mighty fine and eclectic café. 

The daytime trade consists primarily of people popping in for hot drinks and working on their laptops, and the atmosphere is laid back and quiet. We stopped in for lunch, and the specialty is the bang on trend sourdough toasties. Your scribe had it with cheese tuna, and Phil from accounts had his with cheese and jalapeno. The sourdough was crisp and with sharp and abundant cheese (£6.50) . Phil remembered that we were at work and had an Americano as opposed to his usual massive red wine.  We also had our eyes on the homemade pastries, sharing boards, and smoothies.

What Cable does ingenuously is transform itself from a lunchtime sandwich/coffee bar to an evening cocktail and beer joint. The transition happens during the 3-5 happy hour when laptops and chargers give way to candles and, on Wednesday, live free jazz. There is a full bar on hand (cocktails £9) in addition to wines both bottled and draft (at £5, sadly quite cheap). A good alternative to the at times chaotic pubs of Greater Kennington. 

Cable Café is open from 9:00 to 23:00 (midnight weekends) and is even available to hire out for parties. We need to keep independent places like this or they may go the same way as their sister outfit Cable Bakery, which has sadly gone to that big flour mill in the sky. More importantly, we need to keep it going in 2025 to prevent it descending to the hellish netherworld that is the ‘bottomless drag brunch’. Because we’ve been there dear reader, and it’s a very dark place. 

The Book Elephant

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Older and more experienced residents of Greater Kennington might recall from the brambles of their hippocampus that for eight years there was a bookshop in Kennington Cross (there was also an Oddbins, but don’t get us started on that trauma). It closed in 2015 and after almost a decade a new bookshop has emerged in the area. It’s called The Book Elephant and is now in soft launch stage in Sayer Street in that oh so trendy new bit of Elephant and Castle. 

At the moment the Book Elephant appears to be a mainstream bookstore with a range of offerings from fiction to children’s books, from reference material to biographies and political books. They also sell paper related things such as cards, notepads and greetings cards. Mostly importantly, they’ve confirmed that you can buy and collect books there if they don’t stock it by ordering on their website.

As we witnessed with the loss of Kennington Bookshop, making independent bookshops viable is extremely difficult and they need all of our support and resources. Because if we don’t support them we might end up with another *bangs head on keyboard* Gails Bakery. And besides, buying books and buying them locally makes you feel doubly virtuous. 

Betty and Joan’s

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As our new intern Allen appears to be up with the kids, we recently sent him on a mission to check out Greater Kennington’s latest LGBTQI+ bar Betty and Joan’s, with the exciting addition of a Queer Comedy club. Claiming to be the UK (and possibly the world’s) only gay comedy club,  B&J is an independent queer owned venue which was originally based in north London but have relocated to Elephant Park because, not to brag, its all happening down here.  

Allen went to Betty and Joan’s on a Saturday night and was impressed by the young and down to earth crowd enjoying dance anthems and drink deals. The cabaret performer was Karise McCock and spinning tunes was DJ Christina Draguilera. On other nights performers include Tiana Biscuit, Rhys’ Pieces and Ophelia Love. We frankly have no idea who any of these people are, but they certainly sound like a lot of fun. On the website there is also a music quiz night and activities/DJ’s nightly.  

The comedy room is a dedicated performance space adjacent to B&J and opens on 7 January. It will be a combination of free (we love free) nights with paid events later in the week. It will likely be a mix of very experienced mainstream comics trying out new material and brand new acts just taking their very first steps onto the comedy scene. So you might get folks you’ve seen on Live at the Apollo or people who are, shall we say, having their ‘moment in the sun’. Keep checking the website as these kinds of things fill up very quickly. 

Allen, if you’re reading this we’re very appreciative that you worked on a Saturday but you’re not getting overtime for an evening spent downing sambuca shots and flirting with men. And we’ll blithely forget the Instagram video taken at 11:38pm of you dancing to ‘Toxic’. Betty and Joan’s is open nightly and is in Elephant Park. It is also open on New Years Eve and tickets can be nabbed on their website. We expect Allen will be there. 

Twixmas Ideas – Churchill in Cartoons

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The period between Christmas and new years is a funny one. We’ve opened all our presents, drank the fridge dry, partied too hard and are about to do it all again. On top of that we’re skint and have time on our hands. So why not spend some of that free skint time at the free Imperial War Museum? You know, that hulking big institution that we’ve been banging on about since the early ‘80’s?

Churchill in Cartoons: Satirising a Statesman marks 150 years since the birth of the great statesman and this show affectionately celebrates his career through one of his favourite mediums, the cartoon. Churchill himself knew of the power of cartoons, and viewed his ‘V’ sign and cigar as props which he invited to be satirised. In an era before TV, cartoons were a powerful tool of communication between politicians and the public.

This exhibit doesn’t embrace the frankly modish interpretation of satirisation (we’re looking at you, Guardian) which attempts to bring down politicians by exploiting their foibles. Rather, we see a Churchill taking charge and leading a frightened public through its darkest hour with a needed sense of humour. We also see Nazi propaganda used to depict Churchill in a very different manner. However. This exhibit runs through the entirely of his career, from 1909 to the 1950’s. 

You may find it a bit counterintuitive spending the festival season in a place dedicated to blowing things up. But the IWM isn’t that at all, and if anything it celebrates the human spirit. The gallery will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but open every day after that. And if Churchill isn’t the kind of cigar you like to chomp on, then why not visit the great Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries or the exhibit ‘War and the Mind’, which we brilliantly wrote about? 

The Last Days of Liz Truss at White Bear Theatre

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When we first saw the title of this new play at the White Bear Theatre, we thought it rather odd as the end of Liz Truss seemed to overlap with the beginning. Nevertheless, we just visited the Bear’s latest offering and we’re here to tell you all about it. If you’ve never been to the White Bear Theatre, it’s been a Greater Kennington staple since the 80’s and focuses on new and cutting edge writing. 

The Last Days of Liz Truss is an origin story told from her own perspective, and beings with a jaunty twirl around her childhood in Scotland and Leeds and her battle to be called ‘Elizabeth’ as opposed to her given name of Mary. A similarity to Thatcher is invoked/contrasted in this period and underlined when Liz/Mary breaks into song with 80’s tunes such as ‘Material Girl’. We then speed through her early parliamentary career as a junior minister as she builds alliances with the likes of Kwasi and Therese Coffey (‘TC’). 

In the second half we encounter the Truss who we all remember, trying to rationalise cutting taxes as the establishment deep state (cunningly deployed by remote voices) urge her against this. Then come the pesky little realities which work mendaciously to tear her apart. For example, the Queen dying and pension plans. It’s not exactly a spoiler alert to tell you what happens to Liz/Mary after just 49 days. However, Liz readily deploys the use of a lettuce held aloft to symbolise her own downfall, in a manner not unlike Hamlet’s skull. Overall it’s a captivating and very well acted monologue with defined moments of dark humour.  

The Last Days of Liz Truss is on now and runs until 14 December at the White Bear Theatre Pub and tickets can be grabbed here.  While the theatre is situated within the White Bear Pub, it is independently owned and not part of the Youngs mega chain.  But the Bear has some lovely Christmas lights.

The Return of Firecracker

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We have expended an inordinate amount of emotional energy worrying about the former ‘Firecracker’ site in Windmill Row in Kennington Cross. But now, like a phoenix rising from our underground bunker, its back! For those not in the know, Firecracker Chinese restaurant and takeaway in Windmill Row was closed during Covid, opened briefly, and then closed for over three years owing to a pesky flooding issue. We can  officially report that the Runoff loves the new Firecracker. This time around the menu is shorter and cheaper and all main dishes come complete with rice or noodles. Just what one needs for a neighbourhood restaurant or a mid-week takeaway. 

Your scribe went to Firecracker with Bunty from HR.  As Bunty purports to be posh, he resisted sharing a starter. However, after being stabbed with a chopstick and a quick reminder as to who was paying, Bunty relented and we shared a prawn and chive dumpling. These were good quality with plenty of filling inside the glutinous dough and there was range of dipping sauces available. Bunty then went for a char sui roast pork and upgraded the steamed rice for chicken rice (but of course). This dish also came with some pak choi as standard. The pork was delicious and the chicken rice a revelation. Rebecca, our server, explained that this is rice cooked in chicken stock. 

Your scribe had a black bean sauce stir-fry with chicken served with steamed jasmine rice. The intense bean flavour set of the jasmine in the rice very well, with loads of juicy peppers and onions swimming in the mix. For those familiar, inside Firecracker it’s the same vibe as before. There are half a dozen or so tables with comfy seating and it is pleasantly, if a little brightly, lit for people of a certain age. Overall a comfortable place for a casual meal. There is a short wine list and prices are all in the £20-30 range.

We are glad to have Firecracker back and we think the simple and value-for-money menu will be a hit with former and new fans alike. Make sure you give heartly hello to manager/server Rebecca, who owns Firecracker with her family and who lives around the corner. 

Kennington Post Office Possible Closure

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For many of our younger readers, a place where you put things in the post, get out cash and obtain foreign currency is about as relevant as, well, Jeremy Clarkson or ‘Chico Time’. But for those not fortunate enough to whiz about on scooters to return their Asos delivery at Tesco, the Post Office is an  important place, and the Kennington Post office is on a list to be closed and they need our help! 

Kennington Post Office was earmarked for closure 10/11 years ago and was saved following local engagement and subsequently given a glow up and has ended in its current form. At the time our local MP, Councillors, two petitions (2000 signatures) and local responses to the formal consultation  influenced the outcome.  To find out more about the campaign follow the large, clown like QR code below. If you find QR codes a bit scary and prefer the comfort of a post office/website, you can join here.