Category Archives: buildings

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 3 – Open House London 2025

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It’s that time of year again and one of our favourite activities here at the Observer….sticking our noses where they don’t belong! From 13 September to 21 September ii’s the Open House London Festival, celebrating London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods by flinging open doors and streets not usually open to the public. We have a few suggestion for you and they are all FREE, and we love free. Well, the last two aren’t free.

Most Open House venues have friendly staff on hand to tell you more about what you’re seeing and there are often things to read. If you look on the website you’ll see some local bookable things, but we’re afraid you’ve mostly missed the boat on those babies. The localish venues listed below are open to the public on specific dates, so look at opening times. However, if you possess the audacious gaul to travel out of Greater Kennington you might find there are hundreds more free things to stick your head into around the capital. But we couldn’t possibly encourage that kind of behaviour.

London Fire Brigade Memorial Hall (perhaps your last chance to see it before it is turned into, you guessed it, flats and a luxury hotel).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/11781

International Maritime Organisation (that bizarre looking building on Albert Embankment. pictured below)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/7730

Anderson WW2 Bomb Shelter (for the fetishists among you).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10010

St. Paul’s Newington  (Been and recommend. 1950’s beaut)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/2556

Walworth Garden (been and recommend, even if it is like a stroll through a garden centre)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10950

Soane Re-imagined – St. Peter’s Church

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/13342

Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library (been and recommend. Yes, it’s a trip to the library but with a museum stuck in it)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/9722

Van Gogh House London (Been and recommend. Its more about restoration than the great man so don’t expect any paintings or a severed ear).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/8317

Lots of other interesting things that are less than free such as an Elephant and Castle Walking Tour

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elephant-48

And Nine Elms Walking Tour (fun but also not free)

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elms-29

The Bygone Era of Greater Kennington

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Some parts of Greater Kennington have survived for centuries, some were lost as a result of enemy action, and other parts bulldozed as a result of short term thinking and poor planning. Others are lost in plain sight as not many people know about them. Have you ever noticed the former Pelham Mission Hall in Lambeth Walk?

The quite striking Mission Hall was built on 1910 to a design by local architects Waring and Nicholson, who possibly collaborated on the stunning Doulton Pottery building (below) in Black Prince Road. It replaced something called a “beerhouse” of which little is known. The Hall was in fact a church, complete with an outdoor pulpit. One can imagine that it’s no coincidence that a church should supplant a beerhouse, and perhaps the Rector used his bully pulpit to warn the marketgoers in Lambeth Walk about the evils of drink and its associated lascivious behaviours.

The Mission Hall is one of those rare survivors of the bygone era of a Cockney Kennington tinged with deprivation and struggle. When the Hall was built Lambeth Walk had over 100 market stalls run by street sellers, or costermongers, who would hawk their wares in a melodic street patter which can still be heard in East Street market in Walworth. If you want to know more about the history or Lambeth Walk itself, check out our post from 2021.

Like the pawn shops and fruit sellers which once dominated Lambeth Walk to ease the hardship of people, there is no longer the need for a rector to be spouting the value of pious living for eternal salvation. Today the Hall has stopped  saving souls but is a home to creating sculpture. The Henry Moore Sculpture Studio exists as a creative place for sculpture courses and a space for creating lovely things. They offer a range of courses in all aspects of sculpture which are not free, and periodic lectures which are. Check out their website for information about both.

Community Space, a Fine Place to Get the Job Done

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  • You might recall that Walworth Town Hall sadly burned down several years ago and has had hoarding over it for aeons. Well, like a Phoenix or anything else that comes out of ashes it’s been reborn as Community Space, with rooms for hire for community and charity groups. As we at the Observer have no morals when it comes to free WiFi, and we just checked out their very swishy café which is to be used by mere mortals like us. 

The café look looks less like a coffee joint and more like a private members club. Mind you, we’re just speculating here as our experience of private members club extends only to  Subway’s ‘Sub Club’. This part of Walworth Town Hall was purchased by Community Space in order to provide flexible office areas upstairs, aimed at non profits. We have a feeling that a condition of purchase was that they had to provide services to the community, and they offer a number of free classes, such as yoga.  

In the Café we had an extremely overpriced (£4!) tea but at this price it gave us licence to sit there in quiet serenity for five hours. The coffees (espresso, latte, macchiato, the usual stuff) appeared a bit more reasonable. One half of the café is a casual restaurant offering an all day breakfast. Lunch offerings have a Japanese air and touch on everything that’s ‘on point’ at the moment, such as poke bowls and quinoa. The staff are very friendly. 

Although located at the eastern fringe of Greater Kennington, if you’re looking for a quiet place to work this could be for you. It did make us wonder if this is what it’s like being in Soho House, but without City types taking a ‘toilet break’ every ten minutes and shuttling past Barry from Eastenders to get to the bar. 

Walworth Garden – The Opposite of a Garden Centre 

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If you’re lucky enough to have a garden or a windowsill, then we want to tell you all about Walworth Garden, our own organic community garden shop. If what you demand in a garden shop are gnomes, water features and fragrances then you’re out of luck here, as it’s all about the dirt and the plants and it possesses a refreshingly hippy quality.

The motto at Walworth is ‘if it isn’t in the ground then its for sale’. This hopefully doesn’t extend to the staff, as they are able to offer expert advice and possess forensic knowledge of what they’re selling. The garden sells everything from euphorbia to ferns, perennials to house plants. They also stock statement plants such Tasmanian tree ferns. And every if you don’t buy anything, check out the cacti and succulents in a giant geodesic dome. Pots and soil are also sold. It’s also a very relaxing place to just wander and sit on the many benches to escape our rather chaotic enclave.

Walworth Garden also have an extensive training programme in addition to offering a Level 2 in horticulture. Interesting courses include making perfume and fermentation, but at £85 a pop this training is far from cheap.  But on the other hand, imagine the pleasure at Christmastime when you say ‘look aunty Claire, I made you a bar of soap with some thyme stuck in it’! Or by taking the moral high road with your flatmates when they complain that your bedroom smells like a decomposing rat, by saying  ‘excuse me, but I’m HOME COMPOSTING’! 

Collective Cakes

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The lovely building in the middle of Kennington Park is occupied by a family run pizza/cake establishment called ‘Collective’. Several years ago they decided to open a sandwich shop called ‘Sugar Pot’ in that frankly quite depressing parade of shops in front of Kennington Park It has now been replaced by a bakery and sandwich place called, fittingly, Collective Cakes.  

Reassuringly, the space at Collective has turned entirely into a kitchen, with goods available to consume either on a takeaway basis or on small tables out front. Our peppy server explained that the pastry chef arrives and cooks all of the baked goods (excluding croissants) from 5am. We saw your typical complement of Victoria sponge, muffins, scones, carrot cake, coffee and walnut, and lime and ginger. There are also vegan and gluten free options. 

Karen from Finance loves nothing more than a midday sweet treat to take her mind off numbers and wondering what happened to the fax machine. She had an apricot croissant, which she described as ‘of good quality and not as bouncy as those chain coffee shops’, adding that it possessed good flakiness and was a nice dark bronze, with apricot notes. Your scribe opted for one of the many savoury options and had a mozzarella, pesto and tomato sandwich. Good quality mozzarella, rich pesto, served on a kind of sourdough bread. Other sandwiches ingredients included prosciutto, stilton, and brie. They also sell homemade sourdough bread (I mean, who doesn’t).

In addition to the goodies outlined above, Collective also serves latte, cappuccino, and that old fashioned thing called coffee. Our server was keen to point out that that they also serve turmeric latte with no caffeine. We have no idea what that is but once we find that fax machine we’ll get to it.  

Can You Help With Our Project?

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Some of you might think that the current Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is the open space that was created when the original Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was closed in 1859, but you’re mistaken. It was actually a vibrant, working class neighbourhood for over 100 years consisting of Glyn Street, Auckland Street and Italian Walk. It was destroyed developed by Lambeth into its current incarnation only in the mid 1970’s.  And believe it or not, the Vauxhall Tavern used to have shops and homes attached to it. The photo with the woman in it was taking in the early 1970’s in Goding Street in the sad dying days.

As we’re sure you are aware, we here at the Runoff are nothing if not highly academic. If you lived in this community or have any information about it we’d love to hear from you and feel free to email us at kenningtonrunoff@gmail.com . So you can be a staff member, or just act like one. Our online research has not exactly been, lets say ‘fruitful’, but we plan to go to Minet history reference library when we can muster the courage to leave Greater Kennington. 

Here is a lovely photo of a family who resided in Auckland Street in 1905. If you’re reading this from your heavenly perch then we welcome your feedback. We’ll get out our ouija board. 

The Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington #6

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+ One Sunday Roast

Brunswick House Restaurant

If money were no object then Brunwisck House would nab the top spot, but as money DOES matter they’ve bagged the still respectable six slot. Please note that restaurants on this scale have menus that change almost daily. So what you read below (from 2024) might not still be available.

If you’ve ever noticed a large Georgian mansion which appears to be on the precipice of getting inhaled by skyscrapers in the Vauxhall gyratory, it is called Brunswick House (and we’ve written about it here) and for several years they have run a critically acclaimed restaurant, in addition to its main hustle of selling (very) high end architectural salvage.

The dining room sits effortlessly in a large space in Brunswick House selling mostly chandeliers, light fittings and other gorgeous things. For an upmarket restaurant, the clientele was surprisingly young in a kind of ‘please come to my book launch next week’ kind of way. And no sooner do we sit down than we are joined at the next table by no other than TV presenter Miquita Oliver and a gaggle of her gorgeous, hair flicking friends! They were a nice complement to our botanical and creative cocktails, the favourite being their house eucalyptus martini. 

The menu at Brunswick House often requires a diction course or at least a dictionary. But fear not, the drilled to perfection serving staff can help you differentiate between a chicharron and a tardivo. And there is the very modern dilemma of trying to decipher a sharing plate from a mains. Highlights among the snack or starter sizes were the salt cod croquettes, the roasted leeks and the devilled eggs. The croquettes oozed with creamy salty fishiness, while the roasted leeks were winning for an innovative combination with a tangy sauce derived from red peppers and pecans. The devilled eggs had a seventies retro quality but the trout roe filling gave it a more on trend feel.

For the mains, your scribe had the roast cod with sea greens and spring vegetable chowder. The meaty and flaky cod was set off well with what appeared to be a tureen of well matched veg with an aniseed hit.  A big hit on the main size dishes was the fresh maccheroni (note proper Italian spelling). This packed a big flavour hit with the curious sounding combination of roast chicken butter, wild garlic and bottarga (translation: grey mullet roe). Curious it was but definitely lovely – rich and satisfying. 

Fancy Macaroi
Cod

And then, after a night spent with Maquita and her chums set amongst glittering chandiliers  and food we couldn’t pronounce, our night was over and we were deposited into a bus fumed traffic gyratory in Vauxhall. But the wonderful food made it worthwhile. This kind of food is by no means cheap, but one of the few glories of sharing portions is that you can just pop in for a snack of two £5 plates and they’re fine with that. 

J- Seven

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For purposes relating to our  wholly scientific and profoundly subjective top 10 list of the best places to eat in Greater Kennington (+ a Sunday roast) The Kennington Observer (formally known as the Runoff)  just paid a TKO visit to hot new Chinese restaurant J –Seven in Vauxhall. Our top ten list kicks off in a couple of weeks. But will it make the cut? 

J-Seven occupies one of the arches in Albert Embankment, and the arches typify the evolution of our storied manor. Previous inhabitants have included coal, railway sidings, gyms, motorbike shops and nightclubs. J-Seven has now pitched up in one of the arches offering upmarket(ish) Mandarin cuisine with the totally intoxicating element of lounge singers in the evening. Sadly we attended in the daytime with no singer evident. But the helpful manager Bear explained that there are singers most nights. 

J-Seven presents itself in that wonderfully Chinese restaurant manner of seeing customers as a slight inconvenience, and they prove this by plopping an Ipad in front of you to order. As Ipads came about only twelve years ago, we are very much up with the kids and your scribe ordered the slow braised brisket with rich sauce. This was proper slow braised beef with juicy fat on the sides, served with Chinese rice and a firey spicy cabbage which was delicious when mixed with the stewed meat juice. 

Very few of us at the Observer have real life partners as we’re overworked. However, you are luckier than us we again J-Social for a date owing to its banging cocktail bar in the front, the precise menu, low romantic lighting, and the food is properly Chinese. And when under the arches think about all those amazing women and men who might have worked there shovelling coal, building a railroad, dancing or just buying a motorbike. Our evolution continues.  

Bert Hardy, Chronicler of Greater Kennington

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

Bert Hardy (1913-1995) was a self trained photographer and resident of Elephant and Castle who worked as chief photographer for the Picture Post during a pivotal moment in the history of the UK. Hardy travelled the world photographing wars and current affairs and closer to home covered the D-Day landings and a certain royal wedding. Closer to home ever still, he was commissioned a series of photographs called ‘Life in the Elephant’ over a three week period in 1949 depicting working class life in the Elephant.  

Set amidst a backdrop of bombs and building sites, Hardy captured the backdrop of a seemingly unchanged pattern of life….horse drawn carts, trams, kids playing…juxtaposed against a community that was changing radically. The wintry weather had a great deal to do with the effect of these photos, as did Hardy’s predilection for haze and smog. The photos below are just a snippet of those generated for the Post. We invite you to Google the man and you might just find yourself down your own time consuming but very enriching rabbit hole. Meanwhile enjoy the photos below.

A small boy reads a newspaper at the kitchen table while his mother opens a tin of food at their home in the Elephant and Castle area of London, 8th January 1949. Original publication: Picture Post – 4694 – Life In The Elephant – pub. 1949 (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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.