It’s so brave and high concept. We really like it
Kennington’s own Florence & The Machine is back with a new song and video
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Category Archives: Central Kennington
The Boule-In
Brocket Gallery now occupies the whole of The Boule-In’s site and Peter and Cathy are focusing on their original Suffolk business.
We’re starting to think we can make things happen in Kennington just by writing down our wishes and posting them on the internet. When works started at the site of the former ASM Music shop at the junction of Windmill Row and Kennington Road, we asked on Twitter what it was to become and Kennington’s leading celebrity tailor Earl of Bedlam replied “an architect”. We responded “Not a lifestyle boutique then?”. Pure wishful thinking – but here’s how it came true.
Cathy and Peter Bullen are the couple behind Kennington’s most exciting new shop, The Boule-In. Having lived in Provence for a spell, Cathy started selling French antiques and vintage goods from her barn and garden in Bildeston, Suffolk in 2011.
So how did they end up opening their second shop in Kennington? Their artist son Jack studied at Kennington’s own City & Guilds. Cathy and Peter have a flat in South Kennington and were having a coffee in Sally White (where else?) while pondering how to secure permanent premises for Brocket, Jack and his partner Lizzie’s contemporary art gallery which had been temporarily located above The Three Stags. They looked straight in front of them and saw the former music shop being converted, so crossed the road and met the owner who happened to be there supervising the works.
Our friends at Earl of Bedlam were right – it was supposed to be an architect’s office, but that wasn’t permitted under planning regulations, so Peter and Cathy snapped up the ground floor for The Boule-In, and they’re currently converting the basement for Brocket’s gallery (watch this space for more on that once it has opened).
Back to The Boule-In. Cathy and Peter travel to France regularly and source all their stock over there – mostly vintage collectables, homewares and textiles from France, but some from Italy and beyond.
The prices are a fraction of what you’d pay at LASSCO, and the Kennington shop has already been so successful that they’ve had to head back to France and restock.
They’re open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am till 6pm. If you go on a Saturday you’ll probably find Peter and Cathy themselves there and keen to chat – they are very friendly.
As our Central Kennington predictions for 2015 stated, we’re anticipating “The Boule-In Effect” taking hold in Windmill Row and its surrounds, with a number of ever-so-tasteful boutiques opening up in the coming months, diluting the high concentration of estate agents that dominate Kennington Cross. We can’t wait.
our central Kennington predictions for 2015
The Boule-In, the new French vintage homewares boutique at the junction of Kennington Road and Windmill Row, will be a great success. Watch this space for more on this.
“The Boule-In Effect” will see further exciting boutiques opening up in central Kennington, joining Sally White, Kennington Bookshop and Windmill Flowers. Windmill Row will become the new Redchurch Street.
Lambeth Council will finally get their way and kill the Tree of Heaven behind Durning Library, which will help the Green Party in their surge across Lambeth (OK, not everyone agrees about the tree’s heavenly properties, but it’s called the Tree of Heaven – let it be, for heaven’s sake).
Property prices across Kennington will continue to outperform other parts of London. Despite this, no new estate agents will open in Kennington. Yet another estate agent will open on Kennington Road – Lauristons is coming soon – grrr.
2015 will see the return of Kennington’s own Florence Welch. She will be sampled by Rihanna and spotted in Sally White. Will she release a new album? Never mind that – the question on everyone’s lips is when will she start her guest column for Kennington Runoff?
Florence Welch at South London Pacific
Check back tomorrow evening for our predictions for North and East Kennington (formerly known as Elephant & Castle and Walworth).
Duchy Arms brunch – best in Kennington?
Yes, the Duchy Arms do brunch on Saturdays (they say from 12 but actually seems to be more like 12.30pm to 3pm) and so have become a contender for the Tommyfield’s title of best breakfast/brunch in Kennington.
This is their scrambled masala eggs, spinach, chili jam and sour cream. Very tasty and perfect for brunch, if a bit much for breakfast:
They also do more traditional options like eggs Benedict:
Their inaugural brunch menu is here, although it does change.
The food is really top notch at the Duchy Arms, and the pub doesn’t have the slight odour that the Tommyfield has (yet). All-in-all we just about prefer the Tommyfield’s breakfast menu but they’re both very good indeed.
last minute Christmas shopping ideas, and the qubes at Marcel & Sons
If you have left your Christmas shopping to the last minute but don’t fancy leaving Kennington for the madness of Oxford Street then fear not, we have suggestions for you.
Sally White are doing Christmas hampers containing six mince pies, a Christmas pudding, a Christmas cake loaf and a robin (not a real one) for £37. They’re open tomorrow and Tuesday daytime.
The Beefeater Gin Distillery’s visitor centre is open every day except Christmas Day and has an extensive gift shop for the patriotic gin lover in your life.
Windmill Flowers have a range of Christmas gifts for plant lovers, plus chocolates and toiletries, and they’re normally open on Christmas Eve although we haven’t checked that.
We buy loads of gifts from the Kennington Bookshop and their Twitter has lots of ideas for presents. If you want to avoid buying from Amazon, they can normally get any book in the next day, but you’ve missed the boat for that this Christmas so you’ll be limited to what they have instore. They also sell wrapping paper.
LASSCO is open until 5pm on December 23rd and they have gift ideas for here for under £300 (if that sounds expensive then bear in mind this is the shop where an antique bath could set you back the best part of £10k).
And in our rave review of Marcel & Sons, we barely mentioned that as well as serving delicious Mauritian street food, they double up as a showroom selling a range of interesting artisanal gifts on behalf of boutique start-ups. They’re open until 9pm tonight, Tuesday and Christmas Eve (they’re closed on Mondays).
These are their “qubes” – they have 48 of them – 40cm cubed shelf spaces available to rent from £10 a week:
They also have six cases for jewellery and other valuables:
Get them to give you some Mauritian biscuits with your purchase. They’re like mini sponge cakes:
Finally, if you’d like to give something to those less fortunate then get along to Waterloo Foodbank, at Lambeth Mission St Mary’s, 3-5 Lambeth Road, SE1 7DQ on Tuesday from 11am to 1pm. They’re looking for donations of in-date, non-perishable foods.
Good luck and have a happy Kennington Christmas.
Duchy Arms – now the best pub food in Kennington?
The Duchy Arms used to be an old men’s pub (their old website is still live), then after it closed it was briefly a squatted “community centre” with classes on how to feel comfortable with female body hair and such like.
Next we heard of it was an article on the website of an unpleasant but popular newspaper whose name we prefer not to write, reporting that Prince Charles’s chef Visen Anenden had quit to become the Duchy’s head chef, with investment from Prince Charles’s valet Tim McCandless, and the pub (located on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall) would be serving some of the Prince’s favourite dishes. All of the above live in Kennington except Prince Charles who owns Kennington but weirdly lives elsewhere. The newspaper also reports that Tim’s co-investor is Kowsar Hoque. Could this be the same Kowsar Hoque whose “customer is always wrong” attitude has brought such colour to his Kennington Tandoori’s TripAdvisor page?
So anyway, we finally made it along to the Duchy for Comfort Tuesdays, where they serve comfort foods such as chicken kiev, Home Farm at Highgrove (that’s Prince Charles’ farm) veal burger, and apple crumble. We had the globe artichoke, salsify and chard macaroni cheese which basically a posh version of a rather good dish Pret a Manger have started doing recently:
And the Home Farm at Highgrove Welsh lamb shepherd’s pie:
Both were pretty much flawless. Could this be the best pub food in Kennington? We need to go again on a different night but yes, we think it could. Visit their Twitter to see their menus.
The wine list starts at £18 and stops at £29.50 for a dry sparkling rose. For real ale fans, they have Seafarers on tap for £3.75 a pint, as well as London Pride, and four guest ales in bottles
They’ve done a decent job on the interior as well (not that you can really tell from this photo):
So if you value great food, get along there soon and often – the Duchy Arms needs support. When we were there, there were ten customers including us. When we walked past on Saturday afternoon, there was one person in there that we could see – the barman. It’s not the most prominent location (on Sancroft Street), but it’s only a quarter of a mile from The Dog House and The Tommyfield and it’s well worth the effort.
Our message to the Duchy Arms is: sort out your website and your marketing – if you put half as much effort into this as you do into your food, you’d be rammed every night. And don’t let Kowsar near your social media.
Update: the Duchy Arms do have a new website, here.
And the winner is…. Kennington!
Young Fathers won the Mercury Music Prize tonight. They are signed to the most interesting hip hop label in the UK, Big Dada/Ninja Tune, which is based right here in Kennington. It’s the fifth time Big Dada have been nominated and their second winner.
Good luck to Kennington’s own Big Dada/Ninja Tune Records at the Mercury Music Prize tomorrow
They have two of the twelve nominations so they’re already winners in our eyes.
Kate Tempest is the second favourite at the time of writing:
and Young Fathers are outsiders in more ways than one, but Low is great:
Sticky Paws Coffee Van
Update (Nov 11th 2014): the Sticky Paws Coffee Van is no more – it has been stolen!
Kennington is the home of Costa Coffee but despite or perhaps because of that, it was hard to get a great coffee here until recently. Then Sally White arrived, then the Coffee Mob van outside St Anselm’s Church, and now there’s another exciting development – Sticky Paws Coffee Van outside Kennington tube station.
A very colourful sign will point you in the right direction from the tube:
Mr Sticky Paws will be there every weekday from 7am to midday, engine trouble not withstanding. He claims to only use local products from independent suppliers which is not strictly true but sounds like a step in the right direction.
And, in a commuter-friendly touch, he offered to add a little cold water to our herbal tea so we could drink it during our tube journey. Not bad for £1!
Open House Kennington
Open House London is this weekend and the following Kennington places are participating:
Lambeth Palace, but all the tours are booked up there
Mobile Gardeners Planting Station, which is the new incarnation of the Mobile Gardeners Park in the former Shell garage, 137-149 Walworth Road, SE17 1JZ. Help them construct the garden on Saturday from 1pm. More info here.
Morley College (Sunday only)
Perronet House (Saturday only – more info here)
Roots and Shoots (Saturday only)
Siobhan Davies Studios (Saturday only – more info here)
The Cinema Museum – more info here
