Surreptitiously observing Kennington, including the suburbs Vauxhall, Oval, Walworth, and Elephant since 2012. We're fiercely independent and never boring.
If there’s one phrase we love to hear in the office it has to be ‘free wine tasting’. On Monday, 8 December, Friends of Durning Library will be hosting a festive wine show judged by Stuart George, MD of Arden Fine Wines. This will accompany a blind wine tasting competition and a Christmas raffle that may or may not involve wine. We can think of fewer classy things to do than sip a festive Malbec in a library while saying ‘Hmmm..I’m getting notes of citrus and sweaty socks left on a hot radiator’.
The event is 6:45 for 7:15. While this event is technically free, they suggest a £3 donation and considering that £3 will just about buy you a Coke Zero at the Tommyfield it’s a pretty good deal. Plus, money raised supports the library and the many fine things that they do. Like just staying open, which is a perpetual concern. You can book a place here.
Stuart can’t sell wine on the night but we’re sure he can guide you into what to buy and where for a perfect pairing. Of course we always accept free gifts and bribes, if only you knew who we are.
Nothing quite says Christmas more than sipping cocktails in the midst of farmyard animals and hay. After all It worked for Jesus (maybe without the cocktail). This Saturday (29 November) and the two Saturdays afterwards Vauxhall City Farm are hosting ‘Nana’s Nightcap Bar’, with the Café decorated to look like Nana’s front room in the 90’s but presumably without the smell of wet cat hair and mothballs.
Nana’s bills itself as a night to catch up with your mates, exchange secret Santa gifts, and have a good sing song. This festive indulgence can be enjoyed in several ways. For £6 you get a drink, £8 a special cocktail, or most intriguingly for £15 you can nab a drink and a ‘Christmas jacket potato with all the trimmings’. We have no idea what this means but envision people merrily dancing away to ‘Love is All Around Us’ while simultaneously holding a potato filled with stuffing and boiling gravy. Other food is also on offer.
And for you crazy kids more interested in how you look on Instagram than actually experiencing something, for a fiver you can enjoy their nocturnal winter night trail. This brought to mind the notorious dark walk of the 18th century Pleasure Gardens that existed across the street, but without the outdoor sex element. Or maybe with it, as this could be a good way to get more punters in.
So if you and your mates were considering a festive night at the *coughs* Slug & Lettuce, spare a thought for the good folk over a City Farm and all the cute critters that this charity supports and who knows, this might just be your key to a heaven surrounded by farm animals and jacket potatoes. Tickets can be nabbed here.
When this event came across our desk it left us feeling perplexed. It is in a church, so is this something for children? We then followed the booking link which proudly states ‘Calling All Friends of Dorothy’ and we figured it out. Mince Pies! Wine! A Film! Possible Singing! In a church! What’s not to love?
We know very little about the oddly named Deptford Film Club other that they’re based in Kennington and in the past curated a night dedicated to cat videos, so they must be OK. We reached out and they confirmed that the night is not for children, and by no means just for Friends of Dorothy. We double checked that wine will indeed be sold. We’ll be sending our very underused and not very qualified Diversity lead Marcus to this event, whose claim to diversity is that he once had a Dutch boyfriend for a month.
Wizard of Oz will be screened on Friday, 5 December at 7:30pm at St. Anselms in Kennington Cross. Tickets can be scored here.
Many moons ago you might recall some amphibious tourist vessels that would launch from the side of MI6 in Vauxhall and then transform from car to boat. So small were they that we often mistook them for a very large person out for a swim or a caravan that toppled into the Thames. But just what became of them? Well the slipway from which it embarked was taken over by Thames water in 2017 and the little boats became a thing of the past. But with work now complete they’re making a comeback in early 2026!
The press release states that the landlord of the slipway is the Duchy of Cornwall, aka Prince William, and he’s apparently ‘given his blessing’ for the cruises to return. We can easily see Wills calling up Big Duck Tours and saying something like ‘is this Big Duck? Well, they’re done with the turd tunnel now so you can bring the boats back. Bye’. While on the ground be busses cover most of the big sites before heading down the Vauxhall riviera to float down the Thames to St. Pauls. And by no means do you have to be a tourist to undertake this fun activity even if it does look like you’re about to sink to a watery grave.
If you have nothing better to do, the new space in front of MI6 has been dubbed the ‘Isle of Effra’ and was created to cover the source of the Thames supersewer. The crowning achievement of said turd tunnel are several very clever benches made to look like toilets. And the tunnel under Vauxhall Bridge is now open. For many years we would end our nightly monthly runs from Battersea to Waterloo at Vauxhall because the subway was closed and we maintained the flimsy/whimsical excuse that it was too dangerous to cross the road. Progress comes at a cost.
We imagine many of you have recently been saying ‘so just WHEN will a Filipino burrito bar/artspace/coffee joint with beer ever come to Kennington Cross’? Well the wait is over and we’ve just been blessed with ‘Eat the Sunshine, Down the Sun’, which has replaced the not very good Café 303 in Kennington Cross. ETSDTS reached out for a meeting to tell us a bit more about their venture, but of course we don’t take requests as that would make us no different to a DJ. Instead we submitted some questions to see if they reached the threshold of a clandestine yet glamorous visit from the Observer. And they have.
First things first ETSDTS —- we are LOVING the name. Eat the Sunshine refers to the café on the ground floor and Down the Sun to the gallery in the basement. ETSDTS is similar in nature to burrito fast food joints such as Tortilla or Chipotle (but cheaper) in that you pick your bowl/burrito and then build it according to your wishes. Down the Sun refers to the artspace downstairs. It was previously the kitchen and toilets of Café 303, and possessed a distinct aroma of ammonia and wet cat hair. It has now been transformed into a fragrant pop up gallery until 22 Nov featuring the sonic work of Cameron Graham. The artist is usually in residence in the evening.
Karen from Finance, resplendent in her Mounjaro shine, opted for a very healthy chicken salad bowl. The chicken was served as a whole thigh, brushed with lemongrass and oil. Added to the dish was an assortment of extras including pickled onions, corn salsa and papaya with a soy/vinegar dressing. It was all very wholesome and well seasoned. Karen declaimed, whilst excavating an onion from between her teeth ‘its just perfect for those on weight reducing injections’. Your scribe indulged in a burrito with braised pork belly glazed in a tangy soy sauce. With the extras, the overall tasting notes were rich and a bit spicy with the onions acting as a sweet counterbalance. This is Filipino food made from the heart.
ETSDTS is owned and operated by Sam, Nikki, and Angela. On our visit Sam and Nikki were working on the line with their lovely 6 year daughter (she wasn’t working). And of course a café in Kennington Cross wouldn’t be a café if it didn’t cater to caffeine addictions, and it has a number of cakes, coffees, and teas for the morning folk. ETDTS is open from 9:00 – 14:00 Tues to Sun for burritos and coffee. For burritos and beer they open again from 17:00 – 23:00 Wed-Sat. We’re not sure how many local folk are drinking beer and buying art at 11pm on a weeknight, but let’s make this happen!
Normally, we here at the Observer love nothing more than a baseless rumour mill, but today we’re here to debunk one. For many years the house that was used to plan and execute the Gunpowder Plot was referred to as ‘Guy Fawkes Residence’. It was situated on the Thames Foreshore close to Lambeth Bridge and was leased by Fawkes accomplice Robert Catesby due to the property’s Zone 1 address and handy access to Parliament (homes with river views being a bit cheaper in the 17th century Vauxhall than today).
So what was our house in Upper Fore Street actually used for? It was a spacious and elegant family home, perfect for light entertaining or stashing gunpowder intended to blow up people. Said gunpowder was then transferred at night to a leased storage space beneath the House of Lords. As most of the conspirators lived in the north, the house was used for meetings and perhaps lodging. And were imagining a kind of ‘Netflix and chill meets mancave’ crash pad scenario for the doomed men. And while Fawkes was known to frequent the ‘gaff, he never lived there.
In the end poor Fawkes and three of his co-conspirators, including Catesby, were hung, drawn and quartered for their espionage, and that got us in the office thinking. Once you’ve been hung you’re pretty much dead anyway, so wouldn’t then having your genitalia chopped off (drawing) and then chopping up your body (quartering) seem a bit, well, unnecessary? And one can only imagine what the clean up afterwards was like.
So yes, we can claim a bit of the Gunpowder Plot as our own but sad, dismembered Fawkes never lived there.
Tucked away in a discreet corner of Kennington Park we have a proper, retro 1970’s skatepark complete with retro graffiti. Its name is Kenny, and it once saw local kids flipping and flying, but today poor little Kenny is now abandoned and resembles that fun fair from every Scooby Doo * episode and it needs your help.
In between vigorous hand washings in April, 2021 we made time to have a socially distanced meeting with the Friends of Kennington Park. After a lot of work by the Friends, in 2024 Lambeth Council agreed to overhaul the skatepark and open it to the public. You can read about the history of the skatepark and our chat here.
Fast forward to 2025 and Lambeth has decided against restoring the skatepark due to a loss of revenue from central government. The Friends have started a Change.org campaign to restore the funds and they need your help. The petition can be found here.
We’re not taking a position on this, which is unheard of given it involves Lambeth Council. On the one hand, there’s supposed to be a viewing area at Kenny, so it would be fun for us non skaters to cheer as they fly out of the bowl and almost crack a rib in writing pain perform gravity defying acts. However, in spite of their foibles, Lambeth needs money to help the most vulnerable in our midst, such a children. The choice is yours, but its even been in ITV!
* Gez Z’s – Scooby Doo was a cartoon from a long time ago.
When we were forced to come into the office on Saturdays during the Pandemic our only source of human contact was either in chugging Heineken out of a plastic milk bottle in Kennington Cross or at Oval Farmers Market. In those heady ‘don’t touch me’ days the market snaked around St. Mark’s Church and was quite a force to be reckoned with. Owing to a number of factors, mostly rising rents, the market is much more proscribed than it used to be and we fear that it’s future could be in peril. This is where you come in.
Oval Farmer’s Market has a great range of fruit and veg, in addition to a great fishmonger (in a BOAT!), cheese stalls, lots of sweet stuff, bread, olives, chicken, and lovely decorative things like earrings. In addition to French/Caribbean food truck Bokit’la. We of all people realise that the market isn’t exactly cheap, but the fruit and veg are priced competitively and it’s never a bad time to treat yourself to live organic fermented fennel!
Oval Farmers Market is open every Saturday from 10am to 3pm and is across the street from Oval tube. And remember, Oval Farmers Market needs you. Tesco does not need you. Not even the upcoming M&S Foodhall in the new Elephant shopping centre needs you.
Fancy catching a film on Saturday night (25 Oct)? Over at the Cinema Museum they’ll be screening the schlock horror/comedy/camp classic ‘Return of the Living Dead’. The name describes perfectly the endless blind dates some office staff have endured over the years, which left us wishing that we too were blind.
Described as ‘celluloid Rock n Roll trash’, the plot of the film involves some very naughty corpses who are brought back to life after toxic gas enters the air. The only thing that makes the zombies feel better about having been stuck in a coffin for all those years is eating people’s brains. Having had their brains eaten, the otherwise kindly townfolk become zombies themselves and then everything gets very messy indeed. The film ends (spoiler alert) by the town being wiped out my a nuclear weapon, which must have been a real downer for those still fighting for their lives. The film has a great ‘80’s post punk sountrack.
In case you’re not in the loop, the Cinema Museum is housed in the former administration block of Lambeth Workhouse, which we wrote about in 2019. The building would have been the dropping off place for a destitute Charlie Chaplin and his mum and many others on hard times. The museum has a packed collection of film related ephemera including posters, projectors, scary mannequins, scripts, costumes and lights. Your ticket to this talk will allow you to whiz through some of the museum, which is rarely open to the public. And yes, the place has a fully stocked bar (as we know what you lot are like).
If you’re unable to attend this film but nevertheless possess a burning urge to see the living dead, we suggest you pop over to Vauxhall nightclub ‘Fire’ after it closes on a Sunday morning as the dazed zombies emerge. We call them ‘fire damage’. If you can go, good for you snd you can nab tickets here.
Durning library in Kennington Cross has a series of periodic talks which are a good way to build brain cells. We adore the simple community hall feel of these events (scones! Tea! Wine!) as it takes us back to a halcyon world 20 years and 200 miles north of Greater Kennington, where you didn’t have to worry getting mowed down by a Lime bike on the pavement after sidestepping the remains of car parts from a fatal accident.
On 20 October the library will be host to a talk by Philip Norman about the Manning photo archive, which we wrote about a few months ago. Until very recently the Manning’s studio was in Windmill Row, Kennington Cross and when it ceased to exist they donated 500,000 slides to the Lambeth Archives. The Manning’s were jobbing photographers so most of the photos were commissioned by the people depicted in them, in addition to a few random celebrities. Also in the mix are also some intriguing shots of Greater Kennington and beyond from days gone by. Lots of amazing ideas if your Halloween look is ‘Barbara Windsor going to a dance in 1965’. Admission is £3, bless.
As part of Black Heritage Month, on 17 Nov. the library will be hosting Nicola Walker as she talks about her new book ‘Killer Instincts’. Walker is a barrister and now a Crown Court judge. Using her experiences to give the book thrilling authenticity, it follows underdog barrister Lee Mitchell as he pursues justice in a tale that also explores the complex interplay of race, class and authority. We here at the Observer know quite a bit about killer instincts as it’s the feeling we have every time we look at our payslip.
This event is a month away so put it in that diary we’ve always been telling you to get. This event is free, so just turn up. If you happen to be the OCD type you can book a free ticket via the link to Nicola above.
