If this looks familiar then you’re correct, as we posted this a month ago. The Gardeners are the second best Sunday Roast and have popped in at number nine. But who’s on top?
For purposes relating to our very scientific yet hugely subjective top ten list of best places to eat in Greater Kennington, we recently paid an overdue visit to Jolly Gardeners pub in Black Prince Road after Karen from Finance kept banging on about their Sunday roast.
Karen opted for the silverside beef and it was very full flavoured but at the chewier end of roast beef options, so not to all tastes. The real success of her meal was the varied and abundant sides. Had more than one person been having a roast plate then these would have been served family-style for sharing. In Karen’s case, she simply had a very full plate. The accompaniments were totally top notch: mixed colour carrots, parsnips, savoy cabbage, sweet potato mash, and decent roasties. The Yorkshire pudding was plump and homemade (we looked for Aunt Bessie under the table and she was nowhere to be found). We were pleased to see that the Gardeners no longer serve beef from retired cows. While more ethical, we felt bad for those poor bovines who managed to spend their entire lives not being turned into a juicy steak or decorative belt, only for THIS TO HAPPEN.
Your scribe decided to go vegetarian and have a wild mushroom, sweet potato, and Guinness pie. The Guinness took the sweetness edge off the potatoes, which was desired, and a little nicked gravy from Karen was an added addition. It was served in a little jug that was very appealing. This pleasing portion had notes of thyme and of course the added nuttiness of the mushroom. All told, it was plenty of food and carefully prepared. These are high end roasts, which at £21 – £24 they should be. Sometimes it is worth paying for quality.
The Gardeners also operate the petite upmarket food shop Ginger Provisions next door, in addition to great lunch spot Simply Bread which we reviewed in 2022. When we asked the 25 year old sandwich barista if he was aware that the shop name rhymes with a washed up 80’s pop band, he stared at us with a mix of confusion and pity, but we’ll ignore that.
From the archives, the fourth of our month of best history posts
If you’ve ever spotted this rather grand looking building at 121 Westminster Bridge Road you might have wondered what function it once served. For the first half of the 20th century, dear reader, this was the London Necropolis railway station and has been referred to as ‘the strangest and spookiest railway line in British history’.
In the first half of the 19th century London’s population surged from one million to almost 2 1/2 million. Churchyards were running out of space to bury the dead and something had to be done, so a plan was hatched by two enterprising men to purchase land near Woking for an enormous cemetery. The idea was that it was far enough away to prevent the bodies from posing a threat to public health, but close enough to let grieving relatives attend funerals without too much hassle. The icing on the cake being that a Waterloo to Woking line had just opened up.
As you can imagine, people at Waterloo were none too keen on seeing corpses and mourners whizz by as they sat in their 19th century Starbucks, so a separate train station was built behind Waterloo in what is now Leake St. The building was specially designed for mourners and had private waiting rooms, restaurants, and first to third class services. One could depart with their recently departed in the morning, attend a weepy funeral midday, and be back by teatime. Talk about Victorian multitasking.
The Original
By the end of the 19th century Waterloo station was expanding and Necropolis station had to be moved. In 1902 the station found it’s present home and out of respect to the dearly departed the builders wanted to make it as attractive as a funeral director’s office, so few expenses were spared. The line was eventually shifting almost 2000 corpses a year until the line was damaged in WW2, and a decision was made to consign it to history, like the many souls it escorted.
The railway service proved so popular that it even had it’s own rolling stock. However, the reason for this could actually be that if folks knew they had bought a ticket for a train used to carry dead people they could feel like they’d been, well, ‘stiffed’.
Before we commence our mega mix of how you can buy gifts for people you love/put up with this Christmas, let’s think about the Greater Kenningtonians out there who are struggling to put food on the table in these difficult times. This year we’re supporting the Secret Santa campaign run by our friends over at the Kennington Association. Last year KA raised funds to give shopping vouchers to 150 local households, with the families chosen by local early needs professionals. To find out more and to donate, click here. If you like the more hands on approach there is a food collection box next to the exit at Tesco in Kennington Lane.
FOOD AND DRINK
Italo Vauxhall and Mimi’s Deli both have a range of Italian foodie gift ideas including wines, beers, spices, panettone (that’s Italian for ‘stale cake’), oils, cheeses and even posh sauces. Mimi’s has also turned the former seating area into a glitter themed pop up Italian accessory shop in the back, not visible from the road. They also do custom made hampers. As you can see below, the joint is rammed this year.
Mimis
Didi and Franc
Mercato Metropolitano has all of the Italian fare outlined above and also features some wine and posh olives in jars . They have wonderful meats and cheeses but if they sit under your tree for the next fortnight until Christmas the smell might rather dampen the Christmas vibe.
Mercato
Bee themed wrapping paper, Bee Urba
Oval Farmer’s Market Ever thought about buying an edible Christmas gift from our own beloved country market? They stock many things that won’t perish under the tree such as chorizo, chocolates and wine. We’re also concerned that the Market is kind of dying and we need to prevent this. You have two Saturdays before Christmas!
Beefeater Gin Distillery has a lovely but totally deserted gift shop offering unusual, limited run gins and gin accessories. You can also buy a gift voucher to tour the distillery (we can confirm it’s great fun). Perfect for your loved one who likes a nice holiday tipple or to get your annoying uncle Fred to nod off before the turkey is served. We understand Beefeater’s parent company Pernot Ricard is the opposite of independent, but it’s Christmas so don’t judge us.
Orbit Brewery is our own hidden away little gem of a brewery in Walworth. Online or in person you can buy a range of their lagers, cders, ales, porters, and even socks. And the rumour is true, they sell tzatziki flavoured beer that we can only describe as, well, ‘adventurous’.
Didi and Franc have gone full tilt in 2023 and are selling custom made hampers to fill with their gorgeous goods. But if, like us, you don’t fit their demographic, you can just buy one of their baskets and fill it with things from the corner shop. And while you’re there you can pick up a panettone at I due Amici next door. Panettone being of course the food that you never actually eat, but just regift at a Christmas party you’ve been invited to.
NON FOOD
Castle Square When you think of Christmas shopping the first thing that springs to mind probably isn’t ‘ooh, lets go to the place behind Elephant Station where they keep the bins’. But if you venture there you’ll discover a clutch of independent shops that used to exist in the shopping centre. Great for your younger folk looking for baseball caps, hoodies, clothes, or undergarments to make your bum look either smaller or larger. While there pop over to the retro video game emporium 4 Quarters?
SoLo Craft Fair is a collective of online artists and creatives who run a bricks and mortar shop in Elephant Park. Sixty small businesses have their work shown on rotation and during our journey we saw affordable jewellery, handbags, baskets, cards, scarves, bath salts, prints and T-shirts. Things that smell nice seem be dominant this year.
So-Lo
Pretty Shiny Shop
Hound Hut From the chains, cages and chew toys in the window, for many years we thought Hound Hut in Clapham Road was actually a bondage/S&M shop. However, it is your one stop shop for everything canine, even refrigerated dog food.
Pretty Shiny Shop sit nexts to the (not S&M) Hound Hut and they swaggeringly claim to be Greater Kennington’s Christmas Shop (steady) and they stock a range or cards, houseware items, Christmas tree goodies, and small pieces of jewellery. It’s like a giant Christmas explosion in that place.
Windmill Flowers stocks not just flowers but also collectables and houseware accessories and Mary is in charge to show you the way forward. Mary also has some Christmas trees and accessories for those who haven’t got their act together quite yet.
Vanilla Black in addition to books also has some nice gift ideas such as cards and stockings and a few food items. We think VB secretly hate us but we’ve moved on with our lives and are plugging them anyway.
I due Amici, regifting heaven
Vanilla Black
QueArts is a sterling little arts and crafts store across from Kennington Park and they also undertake framing. Great for your creative or just bored friends.
Bee Urban is bee based charity in the middle of Kennington Park (behind the cafe) selling all sorts of honey and honey related things such as candles, fragrances, soaps and even cards. Interesting place to check out even if you don’t buy anything.
Walworth Garden and Urban Botanica While perhaps not the easiest thing to wrap, have you ever considered the gift of houseplants? The charity and juggernaut of horticulture, Walworth Garden are selling cacti, cards and other things in their geodesic dome. While over in Kennington Cross, UB is one of the few places on earth where you can sip your Minor Figures chai latte while browsing Boston ferns.
Always be Comedy , our very own stand up club, is offering your loved one the gift of a comedy E voucher at The Tommyfield. We’ve seen the likes Harry Hill, Al Murray, Sara Pascoe and more. The crowd looks a lot like a casting call to be on ‘The Apprentice’ but you quickly get over that.
Last week we attended the gala opening* of the spanking new Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries at the best museum we bet you’ve never been to, our very own Imperial War Museum. This permanent gallery is a valued addition to the Greater Kennington cultural landscape (it’s a thing, trust us) and includes works by Henry Moore, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Cecil Beaton, and Wyndham Lewis to name but a few.
The galleries are laid out by themes and are chronological, from WW1 to 21st century conflicts. As with the other display areas at IWM, these new galleries don’t seek to glorify war but rather to explain it and how it can be avoided. This is achieved by a captivating mix of propaganda posters, photographs (the gallery own 12 million), armaments, film clips, cameras, and first hand accounts. But the great achievement here are the paintings, with the highlight being the recently restored work ‘Gassed’ by Sargent (below). We could have probably spent several days in the gallery’s two screening rooms but the Runoff overlords would have none of it. The reel of clips range from footage of the D-day landings to advice about how to make a wartime compost heap.
Gassed
Rather than being a historical record, the galleries include current work showcasing the conspicuous talent of artists such as Steve McQueen (the Oscar winning artist, not the formerly living action hero). He’s represented here by his artwork ‘Queen and Country’. Also in the mix are descriptions of anti war protests, marches, and attempts to avoid war. This is interesting in its own right, but especially when considering the complex dynamics of what is transpiring in Gaza and Israel at the moment. But a celebration of war artists and photographers is the beating heart of these expansive and well thought out galleries.
You might be reading this and thinking that the IWM is nationalistic and not your cup of chai. We get that, but we are duly challenging you to get your Guardian reading, tofu buying selves over to the IWM when you have a spare hour of two. And as you’ll be in the neighbourhood anyway, why not check out the fascinating exhibit about spies and deception that we wrote about a few weeks ago? Did we mention that they have a stonking café with pretty cakes and sarnies?
On a recent meander down Wincott Street in north Kennington we noticed an unusual Victorian building looking not unlike a prison, which prompted us to pull out (nerd alert!) an old Ordnance Survey map. This building was constructed to be a ‘casual ward’, or a very temporary home for homeless people passing through our manor.
Before 1930 terminally homeless people were a not uncommon site in Greater Kennington. Casual wards were constructed close to workhouses, and we have written about the Lambeth workhouse before, which is around the corner from the casual ward and was once the home of Charlie Chaplin. While workhouses were places for local people (like the Chaplin family) to live while they got back on their feet and perhaps learned a trade, casual wards were intended for the totally destitute of no fixed address to stay for one night, so no one was committed to their help.
Conditions in our Lambeth casual ward were pretty terrible and people had to work extremely hard for a night in conditions barely better than the street from where they came. As their clothes were being fumigated, the inmates bathed collectively by gender and were then put to work. It is debateable as to what this work actually entailed, but was something like potato peeling for the frail or back breaking splitting of stones for the more able bodied. Folks didn’t even get to partake in the potatoes they were peeling, as dinner in the casual ward consisted of a kind of gruel made of dried oats, making the Lambeth Workhouse look comfortable by comparison.
To gain insight for his seminal work ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’, George Orwell visited casual wards very similar to the one that remains in Kennington today, and specific excerpts from the book can be found here. These remnants of social history are evaporating in the mind boggling dynamic changes we are encountering in Greater Kennington (Nine Elms being a prime example). However, with a nose around our patch you might make some discoveries yourselves if you’re clever and observant. And of course you are, as you’re reading this.
If rock splitting or potato peeling is a specific fetish of yours then you’re in luck. Casual wards, or ‘spikes’ as they were colloquially known, have their own Spike Heritage Centre in Guildford! Probably not the most cheery day out, but you can twin it with a local pub or a twirl around the Surrey Hills.
At the Runoff we pride ourselves on making our reviews totally anonymous, sometimes to the frustration of business owners, and don’t ask for freebies. So we lay our cards on the table and admit to kind of knowing Houman and Seti who run Kennington Cross restaurant staple Amici, and we’re here to tell you about their upcoming summer party because it’s fun and good value for money.
Let’s face it, few restaurants in Greater Kennington appear to be flourishing at the minute and Amici is no exception. Amici has survived the dual indignities of a pandemic and a basement flood (three if you count the time they decided to sell clothes and jewellery) resulting in its closure for almost two years, leading to it almost going under. They’re back with a mixture of Mediterranean and Iranian dishes and a few events to get more people through the door.
The Amici summer party is on Thursday, 21 September at the restaurant and costs £10. We think this is good value for money as it gets you two drinks in their cute pop up stalls in the back previously sponsored by Lillet and Beefeater, but apparently now with a rum twist. Houman and Seti will also be walking around with some of their Iranian greatest hits.* Additionally there will be a band and a host of neighbours to talk to. Tickets can be purchased here and the fun kicks off at 7pm. Your ticket also entitles you to 25% off future meals.
*We stand casually yet strategically near the kitchen to grab said delicacies as the platters emerge.
Short notice klaxon! We’ve just been made aware of what appears to be a fun music activity that has its inaugural run in Elephant Park tomorrow (that’s Saturday, 12 August). We felt particularly excited by the huge number of exclamation points in the press release.
The event in question is called Elephant Sounds and is described as the summer’s newest outdoor music event and party (!) and is being curated by Chris Greenwood (!) from Little Louis. Frankly we’ve never heard of this dude but he’s clobbered together a number of interesting sounding DJ’s and international acts. On the refreshment front our very own local brewery Orbit (!) will be on hand in addition to Rosey Hue pub, Bobo Social and….winning the best name of 2023 award….Feed the Yak pub.
This day looks like it could be a good crack, but if it this turns out to be the opposite of fun please don’t come crying to us as we know little about it. More info can be found in the link and the diverse, eclectic lineup is below. Did we mention that it’s free? Have we mentioned that we love free?
The details When: Saturday August 12, 2023, 12pm-8pm Where: Elephant Park, SE17 1GD
12pm Cal Jader – DJ (Latin) 1:30pm – 3pm Camberwell Connection – DJ (Reggae) 3:30pm – 4:30pm Baque De Axe – Live music (Brazilian) 4:30pm – 6pm Natty Bo – DJ (Ska Mambo Cumbia) 6pm – 8pm Cubafrobeat! Lokkhi Terra featuring Dele Sosimi – Live music (Cuban/Afrobeat)
Looking for something to undertake over the May bank holiday? We’ve just been sent the press release for The Chelsea Fringe Festival taking place this weekend in Elephant Park. Link below. It does have the uncomforting whiff of an event organised by a multinational property development company. But it has free stuff and as regular readers are well aware we here at the Runoff regularly lower our standards. In fact we have a banner above our desks reading ‘we’re all cheap our prices are just different’. And it looks like the new square will be pretty vibrant with live music and the like.
Unfortunately the cocktail masterclass is sold out, but one is being held at hipster haven Bobo Social, who do have some killer cocktails. We love Bobo if for no other reason than it sounds like the name that some posh lady gives to a tiny dog sticking out of her handbag (Bobo, STOP THAT). While you’re in that neck of the woods check out our reviews of great pizza joint 400 Rabbits, retro gaming haven 4 Quarters, Central Chinese Murger Han, and Brazilian brunch spot Tupi. All worthy stop offs. We do get around, don’t we?
Chelsea Fringe is this Saturday, the 27th, from 1 to 6.
Next time you pop over to the big Sainsburys at the top of Wandsworth Road in Vauxhall, look across the street and beyond the soulless high rises that surround you. If you were in that spot 150 years ago you would have been met by raucous female ex convicts and the smell of starch and soap. This is all due to an extraordinary enterprise by a campaigner named Sarah Meredith, and we’re about to tell you what she did.
When forced deportation of prisoners to Australia was outlawed in 1857, the government had to decide how to reintegrate people who had served their time. Work for men was plentiful in places such as factories, but a unique dilemma was posed for females. People didn’t want them working in their homes for reasons of trust, and Susanna was aware of this. She started Nine Elms Laundry in a disused and shabby Victorian building with a goal of giving jobs exclusively to women who were trying to piece their lives back together.
Some women lived at the laundry and others commuted to their daily 10 hour shift. The rules of the laundry were prominently displayed but not enforced punitively. These included no alcohol or money on site, and the expectation that they would not leave the premises without permission. Women who served a subsequent sentence were not judged and welcomed back into the fold after they’d served their time. Women from all denominations were accepted, which was unusual at the time.
The laundry was arranged as a self financing enterprise with mostly middle class patrons. Such was the success of the business that Sarah was able to offer to clean the clothes of poor people in Vauxhall at a discounted rate. This was crucial at a time in which your appearance alone could determine whether you could put food on the table. Susanna was also able to off free laundry services to people living with infectious diseases.
Records show that Susanna and her sister were living in South Lambeth Road at the time so were close enough to keep an eye on the shop and give a little extra support to the vulnerable women in her employ. We all need a Susanna Meredith in out lives now and again, and we hope there are more folks out there like her.
Thank you to the good people over at Vauxhall History who wrote most of this article. They are a great place to explore.
From the archives, the fifth edition of our month of best history posts
Beyond the soon to be demolished Vauxhall bus station and nestled in the midst of the behemoth known as St. George Wharf lies a beautiful Georgian building that has survived encounters with oblivion, in an area that has become unrecognisable in recent years.
Brunswick House dates from the mid 17th century but was rebuilt in 1758. The back of the house had sweeping views to the Thames and the front overlooked the then booming Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and market gardens of Oval. Just 32 years after being rebuilt the house suffered the ignominy of being split into to, and would never be a single home again.
The destiny of Brunswick House, and indeed Vauxhall, was profoundly affected by the arrival of the railways in the 1840’s in ways both good and bad. The railway was the final nail in the coffin for Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, and poor Brunswick House had its access to the river permanently cut off by a railway goods yard. In the 1850’s the house ended up in the hands of London and South Western Railways and this is when its journey became particularly interesting.
In 1860 a fire almost destroyed Brunswick House, and after being repaired it was used by the railways as a staff canteen for workers, a library, a concert hall, a scientific institute, a bar, and a caretaker’s cottage. In WW2 an army unit lived in the building and, according to legend, in the 1950’s it was used by MI5 and MI6 for secret meetings as they feared that their own HQ was bugged. It was threatened by the wrecking ball on several occasions but was saved from this fate by being listed in 1973.
The house remained in railway hands for over 150 years when it was sold as the railways were being privitised and sold again in 2002 to a property developer. Some readers might remember this period as the building quickly declined as a result of vandalism and was in a pretty sorry state. It was purchased in 2005 by architectural salvage firm ‘Lassco’, who carefully restored the building and filled the rooms with its products, many of which are Georgian themselves.
Next time you are going for your hour of exercise pop over to Brunswick House and marvel at the fact that it’s still there. Lassco is very much open to the public (well, not right now) and a fascinating place to explore. They also have a critically acclaimed cafe. If you’re willing to sell a kidney, or your name happens to be Elton John, you might even be able to buy a doorknob there!
