Category Archives: buildings

Christmas Fun in Bonnington Square

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Yes, dear readers, we are notifying you of two Christmassy happenings in a row. We only have the press release to go by, but we are all invited to ‘Christmas at Italo’, a celebration sponsored by Italo Vauxhall in Bonnington Square. For those not in the know, Italo is a locally owned, pint sized delight of a deli, sandwich and Italian food shop. On Wednesday it will be open until 20:00.

From Italo – 

‘On Wednesday 21st December, Winter Solstice, there is a big local party. Starting at 4pm with country dancing in St Annes Hall, on the corner of Vauxhall Grove and Harleyford Road, 2 minutes walk from the shop. Then there will be the usual solstice pagan carols outside the shop, officiated by our local pagan priest David Spofforth, from 6.30… with mulled wine. Then there is a ‘Bring Food (Vegan and Vegetarian only) and Drinks to share” community party in the Bonnington Centre. Then upstairs at the Bonnington Centre. And everyone is very welcome to come, and bring many family and friends…’

We’re acutely aware of the renegade tendency of Runoff readers, so we implore you to respect the solstice, pagan and vegetarian nature of this event. To put it bluntly,  don’t pitch up in a nun’s habit with a giant gravy double bucket from the new KFC in Vauxhall.   We will certainly plan to abide by this. 

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Charlie’s Home Movie

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We’d like to share with you a fascinating clip of our local Tramp Charlie Chaplin visiting his old homes in central Kennington in 1959, where he lived in at least four places. In this home movie (at bottom) made by his wife, he first visits 287 Kennington Road, just behind the Doghouse Pub. The next home is at 3 Pownall Terrace, a now nonexistent row of homes just behind the Texaco in Kennington Road (and if your friends tell you that he lived in Pownell Terrace at the back of Kennington Park – smugly correct them). This flat is mentioned many times in his memoirs. And after a few scenes in West Square, Chaplin finds himself by a very different looking Methley Street where Chaplin, with his mum and brother, lived in the garret at number 39. Chaplin also famously lived at the Lambeth Workhouse which we wrote about in 2019. 

  • 287 Kennington Lane
  • A petrol forecourt
  • 39 Methley in middle

This video gives us a snippet of our hallowed patch in the 1950’s and is an interesting testament to how things change but at the same time remain constant.  After two minutes the video morphs into more of a traditional home movie, showing scenes of a rather dismal and tophatted London still recovering from bomb damage. And the brightest of you (which is most, as you’ve read this far), will see a brief glimpse of Chaplin’s old school, now the Lycee flats in Kennington Lane. 

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Queer Art(ists) Now at Space Station 65

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We recently attended the intriguing exhibit ‘Queer Art(ists) Now’ at Space Station Sixty Five in Kennington Cross. Now if you’re thinking ‘but I’ve never heard of this place’ then you can be forgiven. It’s a very underused artist run space and gallery in the car park (don’t we take you to the most glam places) of Kennington Film Studios. Which we all know as the legendary studio where ‘Richard and Judy’ was once filmed. 

Queer Art(ists) Now brings together 70 artists out of 300 applications and 1000 pieces of art and showcases the best in Queer art at the moment. They have also commissioned five artists to create bespoke works for the exhibit. The works are remarkable for their diversity and cover a range of mediums including oils, photography, film, textiles, papier mache, traffic cones, and discarded items. 

At times, exhibits like this can devolve into preachy diatribes about oppression, or become overtly political and worthy, which leaves people a bit deflated or alienates those who don’t come from that community.  This exhibit is curated in such a manner that it has a certain levity and playfulness about it, and makes you question your assumptions. There are works about the trans experience, body image, gender politics, sex, and the intersection between ‘straight and gay’ and what that means. The variety means you’ll likely come across something pleasing regardless of your tastes or sexuality.  On our visit we were greeted by a young man dancing in a dressing gown and they were giving away free permanent tattoos.

Queer Art(ists) Now is totally free and open Wednesday to Saturday 12 – 8 Until 8 October. They also have a variety of merch on sale to peruse. And why this great exhibition space isn’t used more regularly is one of life’s great mysteries. Like why you never see any baby pigeons or the sudden craze for Greggs branded clothing. 

City & Guilds Free MA Show

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Under the flimsy guise of being actual journalists, we just attended the private view of the huge MA degree show over at City and Guilds in Kennington Park Road. This year does not feature the usual staples of woodcarving and conservation, with a larger emphasis on painting and sculpture. However, it extends over to the old telephone exchange in Kennings Way. 

The themes this year seem to run the gamut to contemplations over solitude, to Japanese anime, to broken pottery.   The MA show is totally free and open this week (Tues-Thu) from 11:00 to 17:00. It’s open until 20:00 on Friday with the tantalising caveat ‘bar from 18:00’.  It closes on Saturday, 10 September at 17:00. 

Kennington Tube Blazes the Trail

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Unlike other areas in south London, Greater Kennington is awash with tube stations. Two of them, Kennington and Oval, were the first deep level electric underground stations in the world when they were completed in 1890 (aren’t we always ahead of the curve). The line was built by City and South London Railway Co. and originally stretched from Stockwell to King William St. (near Bank). It proved such a wild success that it inspired other speculative builders to rip up streets and dig routes into the City from places like Shepherd’s Bush (Central Line) and Waterloo (W&C Line). 

In 1890 alone our little stretch of what would later become part of the Northern Line attracted over five million passengers. The price of the fare was low enough to attract not just snooty bankers living in Kennington Lane, but also people who worked as clerks, in factories, or as teachers. The line also attracted sightseers to gawp over our anointed and hallowed patch and get some R&R in Kennington Park. And by 1897 more nerdy types might have been enticed by the first electric lift of any tube station (remembered by the now redundant dome). 

Entrance hall, 1934

For our forebears, all of the giddy thrill associated with travelling through a hole in the ground did have certain drawbacks. The carriages were described as  ‘padded cells’ and people faced stifling heat in addition to near blackouts when the train accelerated. As the novelty wore off electrified trams began scuttling down Kennington Park Rd. and into the City. Not only did trams minimise the risk of getting touched up in the dark, they also had many more stops. So profits began to decline for our pioneering Railway Company, and by the 1920’s  shareholders gladly sold up to the ever expanding tube network. 

Sadly, while researching this piece we made little headway in ascertaining the source of the great pong of Kennington tube. For those who weren’t around, the smell was somewhere between just stomped on cheddar cheese and wet cat hair. 

Trams on a very different looking Kennington Park Rd. at Oval tube.

A New Theatre for Greater Kennington

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There’s a brand spanking new 300+ seat theatre set to fling open its cutting edge doors in Greater Kennington and we’ve just had a behind the scenes sneak preview of the place. Located in the surreally named ‘Uncle’ building in Newington Causeway, Southwark Playhouse is actually just moving from the other side of Elephant. The old site will be open for a few more years, but this will be the new permanent home of one of the most acclaimed theatres south of the river. The opening is set for the end of 2022, and if there’s a gala opening party we’ll play the ‘but we’re Kennington INFLUENCERS’ card to bag an invite*. 

The design of our new playhouse is actually something to behold in itself. The theatre is fully adaptable with the ability to remove all of the seats or even the galleries (!) to create theatre in the round, traverse, or proscenium staging. The new space also prides itself on its green credentials: Much of the wood is reclaimed and kept to a minimum, and there are a few living green walls in the cafes. One thing we love about the other venue is the very cool and somewhat ramshackle café area, where you can get a cheap pizza and cocktail before a show or at other times of the day. They’re hoping to recreate this in their new venue with council approval. Southwark, we’re wagging a fat Runoff finger at you as we type! 

What really makes Southwark Playhouse special is its free outreach programmes for young people aged 11 – 18 (Southwark residents). They also have acting groups for people aged 65+ and a ‘people’s company’ geared towards all adults who are interested in different aspects of the stage, from set design to acting. There is a studio in the building for the bespoke use of these groups.

If you’ve never been to the Playhouse, it focuses primarily on new writing and emerging artists in a manner similar to that of the Young Vic. Sometimes this work is challenging (the current offering is a musical about yeast), but at other times fun and delectable. Earlier this year we saw a Romeo and Juliet re-imagined  in a south London council estate in 1981 set to a soundtrack by Madness. We also had underpants thrown at us but we’ll ignore that. 

*This never works 

Erno in the Elephant

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It may come a surprise that a post war high rise complex in Elephant and Castle is Grade II listed, but it is and we’re here to tell you how it happened. You’ve probably walked by Metro Central Heights a million times and never taken notice of it. It is fact the creation of Brutalist architect Erno Goldfinger, who was also the brains behind probably the most iconic high rises in Britain; Trellick Tower in N. Kensington and Balfron Tower in Poplar (pictured at bottom). In spite of this, he always considered his achievement in Elephant to be his most significant work. 

The building complex was christened Alexander Fleming House and when it opened in 1963 housed the Department of Health and Social Security. While many found the building soulless, the blocks were praised for their ‘clarity and vigour’ and for the added addition of public courtyards (not public anymore, but we’ll get to that) and green spaces between the juxtaposed buildings. It was also seen as an inspiration for the then mostly bombed out Elephant. Alexander Fleming House served the DoH dutifully for 30 years until it developed a nasty case of sick building syndrome and the civil servants were forced to flee to alternative premises. 

Luckily for our sick and unloved building, Goldfinger designed it speculatively and intended it for a variety of then unknown reasons. It lay empty for almost 20 years and was almost bulldozed (an attached Goldfinger cinema faced a sorry downfall in 1988) until it it was converted into 400 flats and rechristened Metro Central Heights in 2002. It was geared towards young professionals (that’s code for hideously overpriced) and the open public areas made not so public. Next time you walk by the complex you might want to reevaluate your opinion by looking at the angles, jutting windows, and over the railings into the courtyards 

Goldfinger was a notoriously fickle and humourless character, sometimes firing his employees on a whim and upsetting his snooty Hampstead neighbours by mowing down a row of Victorian cottages to erect his Modernist home (now a museum) at 2 Willow Road. One of these neighbours was none other than 007 author Ian Fleming. Unable to prevent Goldfinger’s builders from mowing down the cottages by traditional methods, Fleming exacted revenge in the only other way he knew how…..By naming his most famous Bond villain after the architect. 

The building still continues to totally divide opinion but, like it or not, was granted Grade II listing status in 2013. If you have a spare half million to toss around you can even be part of the experience. Apparently it has a pool. 

  • Trellick Tower
  • Balfron Tower

Deadname @ Gasworks Gallery

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If you visit us regularly here on the Runoff you’re aware that when a new show arrives at Gasworks Gallery in Vauxhall we like to check it out for you. If you’ve never been to Gasworks it’s located at the Oval end of Vauxhall St. and is perfect if what you demand from a gallery involves Styrofoam coffins or dolls that talk to you. 

The new exhibition at Gasworks is called ‘Earth is a Deadname’ by Rotterdam based artist Lou Lou Sainsbury. This show was commissioned by Gasworks and is an exploration of transgender life outside the limiting language of medicalisation. The exhibition revolves around a performance film which touches on aspects of intimacy, feelings of difference, chance encounters, and evolution. A giant cymbal also features on screen and over your head but were going to leave that interpretation up to you. There is also a bedroom cabinet in the room with a range of items telling us that the trans experience is a collective one of unmaking and making the body. 

The larger gallery is dominated by a large scale glass installation with fluctuating levels of transparency, again alluding to the trans journey. As the journey is rarely straightforward, imbedded in the glass are trapped cigarette butts, dried flowers and other debris. The exhibition is punctuated by flesh like texts on the walls which swell like scars or stigmata. All very thought provoking for a little gallery in Vauxhall, and time well spent. 

Earth is a Deadname is on now until 18 September and is totally free. Gasworks is only open in the second half of the week so have a look at their website. The amber resin on the floor is part of the exhibit, so in your leaving comments please don’t write ‘Sainsbury, clean up in aisle one’!!!!!  (we couldn’t help ourselves). 

The Treehouse and a Handy Website for Us All

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Over the past few months we’ve watched with curious excitement as a stylish but seemingly unnecessary structure has emerged in the middle of the Millennial playground that is Elephant Park. It’s called ‘The Treehouse’ and we’ve just checked it out. Let us tell you reader, we’re now more perplexed than ever. 

The Treehouse is constructed from sustainable timber and looks quite striking with its Constructivist sharp angles and stylish benches. When we climbed to the top we found ourselves, well, only slightly higher than people’s heads. It has some nice plantings and places to sit up top, but what we were hoping for was more along the lines of a giant slide or at least a small outpost of ‘Greggs’. 

The Treehouse is open now and is a quiet and shady spot during these hot days, and once mounted it rewards you with sweeping views of people eating their lunch in Sayer Street. If you want to go to the official opening party it’s on 22 July from 12 to 8 and features, err, yoga!  We can’t see any mention of free cakes or cocktails on their website but we might just pitch up anyway. 

Moving on, our slightly eccentric colleagues over at the Kennington Association have created a very handy website for new arrivals into Greater Kennington, which is also great for people seeking a bit of inspiration about things to do.  The very nice group of volunteers at KA run Lollard Street playground and do many other great things for our community such as a Secret Santa. So if you have any feedback for their growing website please be nice, as we know what you lot are like. 

Bee Urban

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If you’ve ever seen people at the back of Kennington Park who appear to be cleaning up following a small nuclear accident, they are in fact beekeepers tending to their buzzy brood at social enterprise Bee Urban, and we’re here to tell you about them. 

Bee Urban is a secret garden and bee sanctuary located behind the pavilion in Kennington Park. We recently totted over to have a conversation with manager Barnaby to find out more about their good deeds. Bee Urban has at its core a goal of promoting positive, ecologically sound gardening and greening with a focus on farming and the preservation of our buzzy friends. They are particularly skilled in offering courses and training for vulnerable people and kids, but also for the larger community (on our visit they were having a honey beer tasting). 

Bee Urban is not only a free lovely refuge from our urban lives but also a place to stroll, contemplate, and to purchase honey and other accessories associated with bees. It’s also a place to get stung by a bee but we’re sure you can avoid that. There are also many ways to get involved on their website. And if you don’t like dirty hands, you can get involved by making (and buying) honey or courses dedicated community gardening and biodiversity.  On our visit we saw on sale honey candles, soaps, moisturisers and honey comb. And in a few days it will be high season to buy Kennington branded honey (yes, it’s a thing). The best way to find out about these is via their Insta or Facebook feeds

Apologies for the slight delay in posting but we recently had our annual team building long weekend at Glastonbury. It went off without a hitch other than Phil from accounts who, after grabbing ciders during Diana Ross, claims to have been lost for five hours. We also flew this flag our our MD’s head but we don’t think he was buying it.