Welcome to the first ever Kennington Runoff poll.
Loading ...The question is a simple one and, being realistic, there may be only two possible outcomes. Which would you prefer?
Vote now by clicking above and we’ll pass the results on to Daunt Books and any estate agents we spot eyeing up the site.
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It’s official – the “NEW SHOP LEASE” sign is up – Kennington Bookshop will be no more from Sunday May 31st 2015.
Although it’s been a successful venture for eight years, the couple who run it have come to the end of their lease and are moving on, with talk of setting up a new bookshop somewhere out of London. They are winding down the new stock and plan to take the second hand stuff with them.
Whoever takes on the site will have big boots to fill, as the Guardian notes: “it quickly became a fixture in the local community, famed for its customer service and bright, peaceful feel. The range is eclectic and individual; carefully chosen books are laid out on antique tables, with Georgian-style bookcases holding all the major categories of fiction and non-fiction.”
The landlords will be looking for new, experienced tenants, with a strong business plan. How about Daunt Books? With sites in Marylebone, Chelsea, Holland Park, Hampstead, Belsize Park and the City of London, Kennington would be the ideal location for their first venture south of the river.
In many ways Kennington Bookshop felt like a branch of Daunt Books – they have a similarly well thought-through book edit, and even created their own version of that bookshop bag (the Kennington one is just as ubiquitous in Kennington as the Daunt one is elsewhere):
The bookshop occupies a large site across two floors on Kennington Road with plenty of passing trade. Regular customers include Will Self, Sarah Waters, and indeed us (we buy most of our gifts there and order books for next day delivery instead of using Amazon).
Central Kennington, AKA Kennington Village, is just starting to become a real destination thanks to recent arrivals like The Boule-In, Brocket Gallery and Sally White joining stalwarts like Windmill Flowers and Space Station Sixty Five. Now would be a great time for Daunt Books to join them.
If you’d like to see Daunt Books come to Kennington, please email them here or tweet them here. We’ll be giving them our full support.
We’ve been raving about The Boule-In effect set to transform the Windmill Row area of Kennington, but long before The Boule-In or Sally White, there was already a lovely shop on Windmill Row – Windmill Flowers.
They do all the usual things flower shops do, plus some plants and a small but tasteful range of other gifts:
They’re open Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm.
Brocket Gallery, a contemporary art gallery formerly located above The Three Stags, is now open in its new permanent location in the basement beneath The Boule-In on Windmill Row (see our Boule-In piece for more about how it came to be there).
Brocket’s first show in the new location is ‘Selected Artists’, featuring highlights from their roster. Both the founders – exhibition maker and art dealer Lizzie Glendinning and artist Jack Bullen – studied at Kennington’s own City & Guilds, as did many of the artists they represent.
This is the space:
They have made nice use of the skylight under the pavement. This piece is called Cavity by Samuele Sinibaldi and costs £860 (skylight not included):
This is an untitled piece, made of jesmonite, by Roshna Qorbanee, for £1350 which is as expensive as anything in the show (the cheapest item is £295):
This is Precipice No. 1 by Alex N Stewart, and could be the prettiest and most expensive piece of OSB board you’ll ever buy at £1350:
And finally, another piece by Samuele Sinibaldi – A Childish Game, or as we like to call it, Pot With Handlebars, £1200:
There were also some etchings and watercolours that didn’t photograph so well. We enjoyed the exhibition and really like the space, plus it’s more accessible than some of Kennington’s other art galleries, so we’ll be regular visitors.
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.
North Kennington (formerly known as Elephant & Castle) will be a messy snarl up from some time very soon for at least a year because of two massive Transport For London projects: the reconfiguration of the North roundabout, and the installation of the new cycle superhighway on St George’s Road. The number of cranes is expected to increase too, and associated construction beneath them, as Lend Lease commence work on the portion at the top of Walworth Road, including a 31 storey tower.
Ministry of Sound will get what they want in terms of planning approval, because they love to fight hard and win.
What will become of the shopping centre? Whatever it is, let’s hope it manages to keep the downtown Bogotá/magical realism vibe that makes it so vibrant at present. Likewise the Coronet and the bowling alley – North Kennington needs these!
The good news is the new Castle Leisure Centre will open in the heart of North Kennington with its two lovely pools (one of them 25m long), sports hall, gym, crèche, café, and a wooden ceiling for those doing back stroke to admire.
The Castle Leisure Centre
There will continue to be havens of green space in the area, including a new Mobile Gardeners event and gardening space opening on New Kent Road called Grow Elephant.
The modernist Perronet House (between St George’s Road and London Road on the North roundabout) will join Metro Central Heights in being listed. See this article about one of the top floor flats.
Like The Duchy Arms, North Kennington’s Marcel & Sons will cease to be a best-kept secret and become a destination eatery.
As for East Kennington, Walworth Road could become a foodie haven if some of the establishments would just sort out their Food Standards ratings.
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).
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.
Marcel & Sons has sadly closed now along with the rest of Artworks, but hopefully they’ll be back soon.
Marcel & Sons is one of the freshest, most exciting restaurant/cafe openings in London, but, so far, one of the most low-key.
Andy Ng and Randy Tsang used to work in advertising (Andy was a creative director at M&C Saatchi), but they quit the rat race to start a Mauritian tea room, restaurant and showroom in Artworks, the shipping container park at the junction of Walworth Road and Elephant Road in North Kennington. Theirs is the dark green entrance in the bottom left:
Such is their aversion to their former trade of advertising that all they’ve done to publicise Marcel & Sons is start a Facebook and an Instagram account. When we went, we were the only customers in there, but the food and the welcome were so great that perhaps word of mouth will be enough to fill their tiny restaurant.
Randy, on the left, is a the fully qualified Cordon Bleu chef, and Andy, on the right, is the front of house:
If you’re wondering what the cases and shelves on either side are, that’s the showroom element, but we’ll leave that for another day because right now we want to focus on the wonderful food.
We’d never had Mauritian food before and we were blown away. You’ll recognise elements from Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian and Korean food, and Marcel & Sons’ take on it has some French Cordon Bleu influence with an emphasis on comfort food (they steer clear of certain Mauritian specialities like sea cucumber and octopus). We could see it catching on in a big way.
There are just three main courses on the menu, but they change every day. We had Bol Renversé which is a sweet yet savoury upside down bowl of rice with homemade Mauritian sausage, sweet wine, onion, garlic, choi sum, fried egg, spring onion and coriander. We liked it so much we even tolerated the shitache mushrooms. The packaging is great too:
But the real star dish was Bao Pao – crunchy strips of beef, mazavaroo aioli, pickled cucumber and watercress served in a delicious soft steamed bun:
The menu was quite meat heavy but they can do a veggie version of Nouik Nain (steamed chayote dumplings).
Drinks wise, the Mauritian speciality is Alouda Vanilla, featuring Madagascar vanilla, sugarcane syrup, basil seeds, agar and milk, and yes, it’s as sweet as it sounds. They don’t serve alcohol but you’re welcome to BYOB, or get a drink from the new Longwave bar which has just opened right outside.
They’re closed on Mondays because the market where they buy their ingredients is closed, but they’re open from 11am to 9pm every other day. Get along there quick before the queue stretches out of the door and they open their twentieth branch in the Westfield food hall.
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!
