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The Prince of Wales (takeaway)
The Pilgrim 
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The Duchy Arms
Kennington Pubs Open Up, Tonight
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Category Archives: People
The Other Dance for Joy in Greater Kennington
Next week we take our biggest leap yet into the realm of semi normality when outdoor dining and pubs open. Over the first week or so we will be exploring several different venues (for purely professional reasons) and will be giving you the lowdown on how the venues are making it work and how safe it feels. We feel that spring is going to herald a new sense of merriment and optimism in Greater Kennington, redolent of a time when this happened before.
For decades Lambeth Walk was arguably the most famous street in London: people sang, strutted and whistled in it’s honour, many without the faintest hint of where it was. Folks in Greater Kennington were ‘doing the Lambeth Walk’ long before the phrase became a nationwide symbol of the proud, working class Londoner.
By the 1860’s Lambeth Walk was home to a major street market, with more than 200 yards selling everything from fish to books to soap. Our ancestors liked a good time, and would often promenade between the stalls, and this became known as ‘The Lambeth Walk’. The silver screen brought our little local strut to international viraldom with a movie adaptation of the musical ‘Me and My Girl’ called, you guessed it ‘The Lambeth Walk’ in 1939, and people copied it from New York to Berlin
While The Lambeth Walk might have been charming the world, the same couid not be said of the street and it was in serious decline. From the1930’s through to the 80’s old buildings were pulled down and replaced with modern blocks. Of course, WW2 hastened this transformation greatly. By the end of this summer we will be in the opposite of decline and perhaps Greater Kenningtonians can create a modern version of The Walk to celebrate all that we’ve lived through.
The Lambeth Walk is an exaggerated rhythmic swagger, with ‘plenty of arm swinging, copious hat-play and elements of slapstick’. This sounds a bit erotic to us, but there you go. For the curious amongst you, or if you’re just bored, here’s a very early clip of people doing the Walk from ‘Me and My Girl’ –
Ragged School in Lambeth
By the second half of the 19th century the rural idyll that was Vauxhall was well and truly over and replaced largely by desperate folks looking for work, and they brought their kids. Ragged schools were charitable organisations that popped up to educate destitute (hence the name ragged) children who were not allowed in traditional schools. A very significant one existed in what is now Newport St.
Local gin/vinegar (that must have been some pretty foul gin) magnate Henry Hanbury Beaufoy funded and founded the school, opening it in 1851 and dedicating it to his wife. Like other Ragged Schools, our Vauxhall branch taught reading writing, bible studies and even ways to emigrate. On the pastoral side, the children were fed and children without parents lived there. A visitor at the time noted –
“The attendance in the winter averages about 400 boys and girls every Sunday evening. The gentlemen who manage the Ragged School do everything they can to instruct and encourage the children in well-doing; they make them presents of Testaments and Bibles and give them occasional tea parties. In fact, everything is done to improve them in the school. The patience of the teachers is surprising. The girls are better behaved than the boys; they are the children of very poor people in the neighbourhood, such as the daughters of people selling fruit in the street, and such like, and found several children of street-beggars there”.
As the Ragged School was built to address the migration of people, the beautiful edifice above also met its fate due to people moving. It was unfortunately flattened just a few decades after its creation as it fell victim of a Vaxuall/Waterloo rail line extension. Curiously, a bit of the building was left standing and is now home to the great but almost never open Beaconsfield Gallery, and its Ragged Café. The school was restablished by Henry’s nephew Mark Beaufoy (the Liberal MP for Kennington at the time) and rechristened as the Beaufoy Institute in Black Prince Road. This building has had many incarnations but it survives.
You might find it intriguing that the handsome Doulton adorned Beaufoy Institute building below wasn’t just turned into luxury flats when a school there closed a number of years ago. This is again the legacy of the Beaufoys. Lambeth respected the Beaufoy wish that at least half of the land be sold to a non profit organisation. So the old car park in the back was sold to Bellway homes, and the institute is now inhabited by the Diamond Way Buddhist Centre.
Millicent Fawcett and Vauxhall Park
The research division here at Kennington Runoff have been working overtime (safely, at home) over the festive period to establish and claim feminist writer, politician, trailblazer and suffragette Millicent Fawcett as one of our own, and we think they’ve cracked it. Her many achievements are outlined here and if you’re the attentive sort you’ll be aware that she was the first female honoured with a statue in Parliament square a couple of years ago.
For a number of years Millicent and her equally esteemed husband Henry Fawcett lived in a house in what is now Vauxhall Park. The house included grounds and the couple realised that in an increasingly cramped Vauxhall this was a privilege which they wanted to share with others. Although the genesis of the idea came from Henry, when he died prematurely in 1884 it came down to Millicent and several other people to fashion the reality.
The Fawcett’s home and gardens extended from South Lambeth Road back quite a bit. Although spacious, the gardens weren’t quite large enough to create a promenading style park, so Millicent and another pioneering champion of the underdog, Octavia Hill, set about purchasing buildings to create a solid, square park. The park was opened by Prince Charles in 1890. And before you throw your laptops out the window, as he was the Duchy of Cornwall the ground beneath the park was (and is) technically his.
So, you may be asking yourselves ‘now why isn’t there a memorial to the Fawcetts in Vauxhall Park’? Well this is a great local mystery. There was a very fine stature created by the Vauxhall based Doulton factory of Henry (but not our heroine, go figure) and it lived in the park for 70 years. In a moment of characteristic insanity, Lambeth Council took a sledgehammer to the statue in 1960. Henry Fawcett’s legacy now lives on in the form of Henry Fawcett Primary School in Bowling Green Street. Apparently the bust of Henry in the school is all that remains of the vanquished statue, but this has never been proven. And when you compare a regal bronze statue in Parliament Square to a chipped bust in a primary school corridor, I think we know who ended up with the better deal.
Fawcett’s legacy lives in the form of the Fawcett Society, which is in Black Prince Road. Their mission is to fight sexism and gender inequality through research and campaigns.
The children of Walnut Tree Place
A picture tells a thousand words #1
If you’re a regular reader then you’ll know that we love old photos of Greater Kennington. We have unearthed three very different photos and over the next three days we will take on little journeys to let you know what they tell us about our community.
These lovely kiddos were residents of former Walnut Tree Place and the photo was taken in the summer of 1921. If you look closely you can see blackout boards on some of the windows (although obsolete after WW1 ended in 1918). These homes were built during the first half of the 19th century mostly to house the families of people who worked in factories along the Thames.
Poor housing conditions became a pressing issue after WW1 and these homes were torn down by London County Council not long after this picture was taken. Between 1928 and 1934 the homes were replaced by what is now the China Walk Estate on the south side of Lambeth Road. The buildings were named after renowned China manufacturers. Walnut Tree Place has changed quite a bit in the past 99 years.
Blanco – Kennington on video
We would like you to believe that Blanco has been on our turntables for AGES, but to be honest we’d never heard of him until a handy (and younger) reader sent us this intriguing video.
Blanco is the pseudonym of 20 year old rapper Johshua Eduardo. A Kennington native, this video is shot almost entirely on the Kennington Park Estate (behind the Post Office). Look carefully and you’ll also see glimpses of Vauxhall and the Kennington side of Elephant. Enjoy!
Windmill Mary
Last week we had a botanically themed exchange with Mary Wallicott of Windmill Flowers. Windmill Flowers in Windmill Row has been a staple of our knighted shire since 2011, and we were keen to know more about providing flowers in a time of pandemic and how she survived with her shop being closed for a number of months.
We had always assumed that ‘Windmill Mary’ actually lived above her shop in a sort of floral Disneyworld. However, she and her husband actually live in Courtney St. Locals have always provided the backbone to Mary’s business, and local support helped her a great deal during lockdown, with noted support just before shops closed in March. During lockdown she undertook ‘click and collect’ and also relied on the use of couriers, and as a result Mother’s Day was better than expected. However, providing flowers for Oval Cricket Ground and summer weddings wasn’t possible for obvious reasons.
As we teeter further towards a life of semi normality, Windmill Flowers is very much open for business and Mary takes orders online, over the phone and in person. Summer is usually more quiet for Mary, but during our chat she had just finished a wedding and was preparing for another. As most bouquets and arrangements are made bespoke, it is probably easier to order for future collection than on the spot, but the latter is possible. She also sells a collection of pots, vases, and flower related objects.
As Mary is one of those rare creatures who both lives and works locally, we asked her about her favourite spots in Kennington. She enjoys 24 The Oval for a spot of food, Vanilla Black for a spot of brunch, and the Black Prince Pub for an evening drink. With the latter Mary was pleasantly surprised (as I think many of us were) that it actually has an outside space. As with Mary, it’s all about shopping locally.
Hem’s Kitchen
At this difficult time we all need more carbs and sweets in our lives, and to address this we recently had a socially responsible interview with Kennington cook and baker Hema Sabina, founder of ‘Hem’s Kitchen’. However, before the interview we decided to sample some of Hema’s signature Turkish bread. One loaf was flecked with fennel and the other with sesame, and they were delicious. At least we think they were as we ate them in about nine minutes. And after signing a twelve page non disclosure agreement Hema even delivered said loaves to our top secret Runoff HQ.
Hema is a true Kennington native having grown up, and still living, in Black Prince Road. Her passion for cooking derives from creating a cookbook of family recipes for her mother. The legacy of these dishes was passed down mostly orally, and with a great deal of trial and error Hema was able to record and preserve them for her family. This was also the genesis for her other passion, food photography. As you can see by the recent attempt to photograph our takeway, where it looks as if a cat has walked across our plates, photographing food is a real skill and one that Hema has also pursued professionally.
A few years ago Hema decided to share her crafty skills in the kitchen by creating some cooking videos which now populate her YouTube channel and are very straightforward. Never one sit idly by, when The Event happened earlier this year Hema decided to share these skills further by delivering some of her delicious baked goods direct to local folk. The Breads that Hema currently has available are – Sourdough, Turkish Bread, Classic Artisan Bread, and Challah. For the sweet tooth, Hema has on rotation Banana Bread, Oreo Brownies, Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins, and Rhubarb and Cinnamon Muffins.
Hema is able to safely deliver to most homes in Greater Kennington and is flexible about how she is paid (details below). Now we would have been remiss without asking Hema the million quid question, ‘ HOW DO YOU SCORE FLOUR?’. She replied that she gets most of her flour at Millars General Store. We’re on the case….
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