Category Archives: events

Pullens Yard Open Studios 2025

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Last week we wrote about this coming weekend as our favourite of the year, and here’s another reason. As frequent readers are all too aware, we here at the Observer love nothing more than anonymously sticking our noses where they don’t belong. And you too can take part in our passion/dysfunction by attending the great Pullens Yard Open Studios weekend taking place on 6-8 June in Walworth.

Pullens Yards (Clements, Peacock and the large Iliffe Yard) are an amazing collection of 1880’s workhouses which were originally designed for the people who lived in the nearby Pullens Estate. We wrote about the fascinating squatting history of the estate a few years ago. Instead of being converted into luxury flats, the Yards serve the same purpose as they did 140 years go, and the cabinet makers and blacksmiths have been replaced by potters, jewellery makers, card makers and folks who make things that smell nice. We once bought moth balls disguised as little knitted mice. And as we know crystals are just rocks, the stall holders might just convince you that they have the power to heal.

The studios at Pullens Yards are usually not open to the public, but twice a year they fling their doors open to give us a glimpse into their creative universe. The artists are more than happy to show you what and how they create, and of course you can buy what’s on show. And buying is by no means compulsory, as at the end the day these folks just want to show off how creative they are and it’s totally free. Have we mentioned how much we love free?

A visit to the Yards is a fun way to spend a morning or a late afternoon searching for quirky and unnecessary things. In the past we’ve encountered live music, food for sale, a bar provided by Orbit Brewery(!) and bumped into neighbours. In 2022 we went on a wet Friday night which proved particularly evocative. And who knows, you just might discover a previously unrealised desire to own a necklace made out of forks or a room deodoriser fashioned as a piece of cheese.

And if you’re hungry or want some tea, check out the great and very quirky Electric Elephant Café. And no, its not a charity shop. It just looks like one.

Lambeth Country Show 2025

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It’s our favourite weekend of the year at Observer towers! But unlike our other best weekends of the year this involves owls, bouncy castles for adults, and potatoes that look like Taylor Swift. Clutch your pearls folks, as we’re about to recommend something that involves leaving Greater Kennington.

The Lambeth Country Show (the term ‘country’ being used loosely as it’s in Herne Hill) is a yearly event held in the hilly enclaves of Brockwell Park and will be on Saturday and Sunday, 7&8 June, 1pm to 9pm, and it’s great fun. The fair is a wonderful mash up of Lambeth life including an eclectic (and loud) live stage featuring Jazz, disco and reggae. It has a fun fair for the kiddos, locally produced things to buy, and is totally free.

A real highlight of the show is the marquee featuring award winning vegetables, flowers and plants. If you see a scrum they’ll likely be huddled around the puntastic figures which depict topics of the day in veg form, and are so famous even the Gardening Museum is in on it.  We had a particular soft spot for Tina Turnip in 2023. If you can’t make it to the fair until the end of a hot Sunday afternoon then I’d give this tent a miss as the award winning veg starts to resemble something you’d find in the back of your fridge after 5 weeks.

The animals are another real treat of the show and something we rarely get to see as urban dwellers (especially the kids). Sheep, owls, birds of prey are on hand to see and, umm.. smell and you might even get to play with them. And if you get homesick and forlorn when you’re down there just visit our friends at Vauxhall City Farm who usually have their alpacas

You will be cheating yourself if you don’t partake in a bit of jerk chicken action when you’re down in the park, as there are a million options and all the vendors are local. Having said that, its also a good idea to take your own food and drink to save time and money.

TOP TIP: We take the Number 3 and get off one stop after Brixton tube and then walk it.

Flourish Fest at Roots and Shoots

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Roots and Shoots near Kennington Cross is a registered charity and vocational hub dedicated to educating young people facing multiple challenges in Lambeth and Southwark and preparing them for the world of work through internships in horticulture and retail. It’s also a green space for urban biodiversity and is frequently visited by school groups. In addition to all of this good work, it’s open to all for a wonder around its verdant and leafy half acre. And did you know this verdant patch is UNESCO award winning?

On Saturday Roots and Shoots will be having their annual community open day called ‘Flourish Fest’ and we’re all invited! In addition to giving you gardening tips, looking at the activities from last year there was the suggestively sounding pond dipping, butterfly sessions, bug drawing, cyanotype printmaking and chalk painting which was for all ages to enjoy. The event featured delicious tacos (yes!) with storytelling by their education staff. The day also featured live music scattered throughout the site. This all sounds great, but to us frankly it seems aimed at kids. Don’t get us wrong, we love children. In fact a few Observer staff were once children themselves. So we reached out to Roots and Shoots and its certainly adult friendly.

In addition to the frolicking fun listed above,  they also have a very busy apiary on site. When we first read this we excitedly thought it had something to do with apes. As it turns out its where bees live, and beekeepers will be showing off their craft. There will also be a masterclass in creating floral crowns which will be perfect for our upcoming team building weekend at Glastonbury, provided we don’t trample over it at 4am in the Silver Hayes dance tent.

Roots and Shoots is a vital charity, and on the day they can tell you how you can volunteer, for example tending their gorgeous Doorstep Green in Fitzalan Street. On a visit for this article we saw a group of young people with additional needs attending a lecture on potting plants and a second group who were proudly harvesting vegetables. Helping them could be another way to show your support.

Guided Walks Around Greater Kennington, Some Free!

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As we hurdle through spring and into summer it’s time for us all to get out and explore our beloved patch of land and they rich history it contains.  The Lambeth Local History Forum have for years put on a range of fascinating walks all around Lambeth and we’re here to tell you about upcoming walks in Kennington/Vauxhall/Elephant/Walworth which you can attend and enjoy. And by ‘you’ we mean not ‘us’, as we are stuck in an underground warren in Kennington Cross, only seeing the light of day to get a Tesco meal deal while almost being hit by a concrete mixer on its way to Oval Village. Some of these walks are FREE (and we love free) but they do expect a tip at the end. Do tip, as we know what you lot are like.

11 May, Sunday 11am – VE day 80th: How Kennington Brought Victory.

19 May, 15 June, 3 July, 12 Aug.10 Sept. Various times – Doing the Lambeth Walk. 

7 – 9 June Lambeth Country Show. This is actually in Brockwell Park but we’re putting it in here as its great fun and you can see an aubergine dressed as Nigella Lawson and get hit in the head by an enormous owl. No need to book. 

7 June, Saturday 11am – Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens: Dance Through the Ages. 

5 July, Saturday 11:30am – Vauxhall Pride: A Walking Tour Through the LGBTQ+ Heart of London. We think this would be much more entertaining if it was taking place at 6am on a Sunday, when people are leaving the nightclubs.   Booking gapingill@yahoo.co.uk

15 July and 3 September – Various times. Unseen Vauxhall: Vanished and Unnoticed. 

So sign up and put these dates in that sparkly, jewel encrusted diary that we’ve been imploring you to get for years. As if you ever needed any more proof as to why you don’t need to leave Greater Kennington. 

BCO Christmas Estates Tour

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Orchestral music is often inaccessible to many people for a variety of reasons, but we’re about to be blessed yet again this weekend in Walworth for a different kind of Christmassy concert that are free and open for everyone! 

Brixton Chamber Orchestra is a diverse group of 25 Brixton based instrumentalists who provide and create music across a range of genres including…wait for it….classical, disco, gospel, grime, rap, swing, pop, drum & bass and others, and often have guest vocalists. They usually ply their trade in community halls and churches in Brixton, which explains why they’re not on our radar. And they’re not in Greater Kennington. But they are now.

Funded by Arts Council England and, surprisingly, by Lambeth Council, BCO is in the midst of a Christmas estates tour of 11 estates in Lambeth. They will be gracing us with their presence on Saturday in the Brandon Estate (those large buildings at the back of Kennington Park). Saturday, 21st December @ 3:30 PM 
Maddock Way, London SE17 3NH 

This looks like it might be outside, so stop by the offie your way to pick up your favourite Christmas tipple.

We attended this event in 2022 and it was great fun. Each show is unique and they’ve been known to feature guests musicians. They also encourage folks to get up and sing along, which should be made easier with that bottle you bought from the offie. And if this is sounding like a kids event, trust us it isn’t. Not that there is anything wrong with kids, a few Runoff staff were once kids themselves. If you can’t make it or don’t live in Greater Kennington there are more dates on their website.

Did we mention it’s free? Did we add that we love free? The clip below is a summer tour from a few years ago but lets you know what they’re about.



Cleaver Sq. Charity Carols 2024

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The annual Cleaver Square ‘Carols in the Square’ takes place this Thursday (19th) from 19:30 and the best part is that you don’t even have to live in Cleaver Square to take part! Or even look like you live in Cleaver Square. It is open to everyone and has raised over £10,000 over the years for local charities, so bring a few extra pounds if you can, but they also have a card reader. Also bring your mug to save the hard volunteers a bit of time.

We attended the Carols last year and it was great fun. We were treated to homemade mince pies, mulled wine, and sang along with the lovely Fever Pitch choir, who will be performing at 20:00. Apparently wearing a funny Christmas hats is a tradition so you’ve been warned. In order to fit in with the posh Cleaver Square set, we’ll be digging out our flat cap, red corduroys and beaten up Barbour jacket left over from some Madonna/Guy Ritchie themed fancy dress party we attended in 2007. 

Gasworks Gallery. Or is it a Mirage?

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When we take a needed break from our subterranean office beneath Kennington Cross we like to inspect the offerings at the never boring Gasworks Gallery in Oval. Previous exhibits have seen the space transformed into a gay cruising area, and another featured a giant Styrofoam coffin. The current show is called ‘Mirage’ and was created by Indonesian artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi.

The exhibit is composed of two film reels, and the first is Mirage – Eigenstate. It weaves together analogous investigations into the nature of reality, positioning western science as just one of many worldviews. The film then explores different interpretations of reality, from Sufi mysticism through to theories of quantum mechanics. We frankly have no idea what any of this means but the film is certainly nice to look at, with lots of Arabic fonts and words spinning around. 

The second film is called Mirage – Metanoia which is set in a kind of 1970’s Hanna-Barbera retro cosmic animation, where astronauts survive rocket crashes and pixie/cricket creatures wax philosophical about the presence of god in atoms, as you do. Again the artist visits Sufi metaphysics by means of a lady crawling out of a crater. Both films are presented in an immersive setting which includes a lovely Persian tiled floor and a wall mural based on the teachings of a Persian mystic. 

If this sounds like your kind of thing, and we really have no reason why it wouldn’t,  Gasworks are putting on a symposium called ‘Strangelet’ over the weekend of 16 – 17 November and tickets are available on their website. The press release describes the symposium as ‘a weekend of presentations, talks, screenings and performances that are categorised as gharib which means ‘weird or strange’ in Sufism (no, we didn’t know that off the top of our heads).

They are also hosting a much less strange sounding breakfast exhibition tour on 27 November and tickets for that on are their website

Riar Rizaldi – Mirage is on now until 22 December and is totally free. And they have a lovely, popup giftshop as well. 

Kachori, Betty & Joan

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Karchori 

It is now established dogma that a place is in trouble when they start to have bingo nights. And they’re in even more trouble if anything they do involves a drag queen. So when our friends over at Kachori, the newish Indian in Elephant Park that we checked out last year, announced they will be having a drag bingo night, we knew that something very dire was happening and here’s how you can help. 

Drag bingo is hosted by Party with Ginger and for £45 a head you have a two course, drag inspired meal (???!!) with free flowing prosecco. On top of a £10 admission this comes up to £110 a couple. Now we would never tell you how to spend your dosh, but for that kind of money we reckon you could get Ginger herself over to your gaff to rustle up a few curries while shouting out numbers. However,  this for a good cause so please support them if you can by popping in for a poppadum or a drink. Drag Bingo at Karchori is on 30 October and tickets can be grabbed on their website. 

Another reason we can’t allow Kachori to fall by the wayside is that its perhaps the only restaurant in London where you can eat the table wear. We kid you not. 

BETTY AND JOAN

Staying in Elephant Park and remaining on drag, a new bar and comedy club is opening and we couldn’t be more excited. The bar is listed as being gay, with cabaret and drag, but if that’s not your handbag the comedy appears to be more mixed. They’re having an opening party on 11 December and if you want to join the waiting list then enter your details over on their website. They fling open their majestic doors later this year, so stick that in the little sparkly diary we’ve been telling you to buy for ages. 

Local Heroes of Kennington

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This Saturday (5 October) is London Guiding Day, and we’re here to guide you about a fascinating walking tour around Greater Kennington that will be undertaken throughout the day, brought to you by the good folks at Lambeth Tour Guides  

Local Heroes Kennington is our representation for Guiding Day, and reading from the press release ‘The Kennington tour will introduce you to suffragette art students, the son of a slave who rallied the working classes, a Black Prince and a little tramp, ending at Oval with some trailblazing cricketers’. The press release also encourages people to leave the area in order to ‘discover more tours around London’. We don’t encourage this. 

The tour will include notable and notorious denizens of Kennington including Jemina Durning Smith, Charlie Chaplin, the Black Price, and a whole bunch of ancient people on Instagram who we don’t recognise but who must have been very important. We’ve been notorious in Greater Kennington for over a decade now, so it’s curious that no one knocked on the door of our subterranean bunker to interview us. And we, unlike the lot above, even have the distinct advantage of still being alive. But we’ll get over it.  

There will be six identical tours running on the hour and they meet at Kennington Station and can be booked here.  They are free, but these people are professional tour guides and a tip (a fiver will do) will go a long way to expressing your satisfaction. 

Fun Event This Weekend at Bee Urban

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We might be taking the word ‘fun’ a bit far here but this event on Saturday certainly sounds bonkers so of course we’re interested. Of the information available by the QR code, the event ‘is grounded in spoken and written and spoken language’ with live performances including a jazz band. This is all sounding a bit New Agey to us, which begs the question of bees actually getting involved in the event. We’re thinking along the lines of synchronised stinging.

Multipolyscripttoscribble (?) takes place this Saturday at Bee Urban in Kennington Park