From the Bert Hardy collection, children playing in the rubble with Metropolitan Tabernacle in the background, 9 January 1949.
From the Observer collection, the nascent Elephant shopping centre with Metropolitan Tabernacle in the background, 8 August, 2025.
We last visited Walcot Stores shortly after it opened in March, 2024. We rated it highly, but that was in its infancy so we recently popped over again to check on the evolution of the establishment. This time around we weren’t burdened with Phil from Accounts, who had a very different interpretation of having a drink on a Sunday. Walcot Stores is tucked away the top of the rather lovely Walcot Square.
Female owned and operated, chief Barista Milly has given Walcot Stores a recycled, repurposed and sustainable look that’s clean and appealing. They sell a good collection of things that you don’t need but nevertheless want such as swishy notebooks, frames, tote bags and gift cards. They also have a selection of cakes and pastries to accompany your drink. The most recent develop are lunchtime sandwiches, made on site daily.
On the drinks front, we saw a number of overworked yet attractive folk popping in for a flat white, latte, matcha, macchiato, or their range of teas in addition to juices. There was probably a shot of turmeric popping around somewhere to make the experience even more on trend. Most importantly, Milly told us that it is perfectly fine to take your laptop and use their wifi (just don’t hang around all day. We know what you lot are like). You can see people working from there in a photo that looks like it was taken after we’d just fallen on the floor.
If you happen to be a fan of gangster movies then you might recognise Walcot Stores from the cameo role it makes in the 1990 film ‘The Krays’. It could have been chosen for the film because even in 1990 this kind of ‘Are you Being Served’ corner shop was almost extinct. Only watch the second half of this gruesome clip if you have a very niche interest in watching that guy out of Spandau Ballet (kids, ask your parents who they are), beating the daylights out of someone.
When new pubs emerge or are reinvigorated in Greater Kennington they almost always tend to cater to a small sliver of our populace. Namely, those who don’t care how much a pint costs. So it is refreshing to see the Tankard reopening as a pub that has drinks deals, a lottery, quiz night, pie and pint nights and, wait for it people, an old school retro carvery! As the publican is also a wine fan, he’s also curated a fine wine list (and tastings) for those more upmarket Kenningtonians. But as our fine wine threshold starts at the level of ‘look, it isn’t a SCREW TOP!’, we wouldn’t know.
The Tankard in Kennington Road was a North Kennington staple for many years. It was purchased by megachain Brewdog in 2017 and when they decided the margins weren’t to their liking they shut it down last year. Come to the fore Bruno, who owns a pub in Wapping and wanted to create a family owned, traditional pub (well, one with £7 pints). Bruno said that he tries to keep the margins as tight as possible with both the food and the booze. There is a huge outdoor terrace, an upstairs bar, and rooms which can be hired out.
For those of a certain age a Sunday roast carvery exudes a certain 90s nostalgic charm: the glowing heat lamps, the anticipation of the queue, the chance (usually) to come back for more. And so here it is back at The Tankard, the only example we know of locally. On our visit there was a choice of pork, lamb or beef (any of all in combination). There were also meat free alternatives. These are carved for you before proceeding along the line to load up on Yorkies, roasties, carrots, green beans, cabbage, mashed potatoes and gravy. For everything except the meat you can come back as many times as you wish. The meats were perhaps a little over-cooked for our taste and the same goes for the vegetables that sit waiting to be taken, but that’s the breaks with a carvery. But it’s all good hearty fayre and the roasties and Yorkies were actually rather excellent. At £16.95 this is a good offer and we think will be deservedly popular.
Other than the carvery which we are understandably rather obsessed with, the Tankard also offer pub classics such as bangers and mash, fish and chips, mac and cheese and chilli con carne. A wide selection of beers, bottled and tap, wines, and cocktails are also on offer. Overall, our new retro Tankard is an unpretentious local pub where everyone can feel welcome, with hearty menu items defying the unrelenting small plates (just order 7 or 8!) concept. Indeed, the place might take you back to the halcyon days when you could down six Bacardi Breezers while singing the lyrics to any Shed Seven song.
Based on our sinful life choices, one would think that upon entering Lambeth Palace Observer staff would have been struck down with a mighty bolt of lightening send from the Lord above. You’ll be glad to know that we survived the experience and we’re here to tell you what we saw, and what you too can experience if you act quickly.
The gardens of Lambeth Palace Gardens are open annually (but not this year) for the North Lambeth Fete but the Palace itself is rarely open to the public, so when we saw it was opening for three days only we jumped on it quicker than a kid on a stolen Lime bike. The self guided tour is augmented by helpful staff in each room, with the first substantive space being the State Drawing Room. It’s a bit like what your gran’s lounge what look like if she was very posh. Next to it is the petite dining room with some beautiful place settings. And if you’re a fan of paintings of dead white men who all look disturbingly the same you’re in luck, because as you walk down the corridors they’re everywhere.
One underappreciated element of Lambeth Palace is that it is a testament to restoration. This is noted chiefly in the Chapel, which suffered a direct hit during a bombing raid in 1942. The chapel has been painstakingly recreated, with murals on the ceiling created in 1988. Other rooms of note are the Guard Room with it’s amazing hammerbeam ceiling, and the massive, eerily empty library with was also mostly destroyed in WWII. At the end of the tour you’re invited to enter the Crypt. While we love nothing more than a relic or a disembodied skull, sadly it’s just a vacant space. Also in these rooms you’ll find mitres, giant rings, stoles, vestments, and all the other camp stuff that Bishops put on. At the end of our tour we encountered a charming little marquee selling scones, cakes and tea and coffee.
Lambeth Palace is open for one more day on 29 August and the cost is £10, with all the proceeds going to The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust. The website says that the event is sold out, but our sleuthing team of researchers have spoken to the Trust and we we’ve informed that there are tickets on the day. 29 August is unfortunately a school day so you’ll need to work from home. If that isn’t possible, dramatically pass out in the office and tell your boss that in order to recuperate you’ll need to stroke your cat for a few hours.
For reasons relating solely to our ferocious quest to unearth gastronomic excellence for our readership, your scribe recently accompanied Phil from Accounts and Karen from Finance to inspect the Sunday roast at the Jolly Gardeners. We’ve always had a soft spot for the Gardeners as they suffer from BPLS, of course being ‘Bad Pub Location Syndrome’ as it is locked away in that little bit of Vauxhall that actually isn’t Vauxhall anymore.
The Jolly Gardeners is a big pub, with one half dedicated to drinking and the other half to dining. Phil had already arrived and was drinking at the bar, mistaking bar snacks for a Sunday roast. Once settled, as starters we ordered cauliflower wings and crayfish/spinach laksa on grilled sourdough. With the cauliflower we expected something slightly healthy but what was delivered was a deep, almost chocolate like batter oozing with cauliflower and its juice. The crayfish was a buttery, seafood like flavour sensation.
For the mains Phil and Karen had the pork shoulder, which Karen announced by pounding on the table and shouting ‘my vegan stage is OVER’. The pair described their pork as slow cooked, fatty, tender, and robustly mild and sweet. As is the custom at the Gardeners, roasts are served family style and this encompassed roast potatoes, roasted heritage carrots, spring greens, sweet potato mash and creamy cauliflower cheese. The best element was that these sides were replenished for free, creating a joyous ‘all you can eat’ vibe which particularly satisfied Phil.
Your scribe opted for the 28 day beef rump, which was served with roasties and Yorkshire pudding. The pork wasn’t served with a Yorkie, so your scribe donated it to Phil’s plate. The beef was rich, meaty and slightly earthy flavour which held its own when drenched with the Gardener’s homemade ’12 hour’ gravy. And the veg kept coming which padded it all out. So nice were they that when the second round arrived Karen garbled, through a mouthful of carrots, ‘this is so good I might go vegan again’!
The roasts at the Gardeners are £25 so aren’t cheap, but this is mitigated by the endless stream of sides. 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 luxury bookcover or decorative belt, only TO END UP IN A HAMBURGER.
The Gardeners has been open a few years now and is a far cry from its previous incarnation Zeitgeist, where they served food that was about as far down the no-frills route you could go without entering ‘humanitarian food drop’ territory. But will it win the best roast in Greater Kennington in our Top Ten List in February? We hope so, as its totally independent and started by five lads who just want to make good food and nice drinks.
Grip tightly people, as Observer Towers are about to recommend that you leave Greater Kennington and check out a free exhibit. Your destination is the quite new and spiffy Lambeth Archives in Brixton. The exhibit is called ‘A Vanished Kennington’ and is a miniscule slice of almost 500,000 slides that Manning Studio bequeathed to Lambeth in 2022 and they are now beginning to digitise.
Manning Photographers was founded in 1949 by James Manning, and later taken over by his son Frank. The studio operated from 1952 onwards in Windmill Row, Kennington and continued until 2022, and the closed premises is very much still there. The Manning’s were at their core grafting photographers. They focussed mostly on wedding photos of local people as they were the most lucrative. However, over the years this evolved into local buildings, headshots, photos for industry, commissions from local retailers, even ID card photos.
If you look closely, you can make out local buildings such as a wedding party in a bombed out St. Mary’s church In Kennington Park Road, or buildings still existing in Kennington Cross. Some are even on the homepage of your favourite website. As a commercial photographer you can see photos of Jane Asher dipped in chocolate or the prize shop of Granada Bingo, now The Metro flats in Kennington Road.
Some of the slides can be found on the Lambeth Archives website but it is more fun to traipse down to Brixton to experience the photos and also see what inspired his work, such as African villages. It’s also fun to pick out the famous faces, such as the Queen whizzing through Kennington Cross or Mary Berry baking.
A Vanished Kennington is on now until 16 August at Lambeth Archives and, like everything good in life, is totally free.
Cheap drink deals! Gay men! Canine photography! Human/Doggie yoga! A hot pub! When you think about it, what could POSSIBLY go wrong? This event on Sunday is brought to you by the Cock Tavern in partnership with the Hound Hut (which we thought was an S&M shop) in Oval. We know very little about this event and none of us have a dog or do yoga. However, we like to laugh this kind of odd thing is just up our street. See you there, although you don’t know who we are.
Even if you aren’t a gay dog owner who does yoga and likes to have their picture taken, the Cock is a quirky and inclusive place to chill and stare at the art on the wall. And apparently they serve pizza!
Doggie Sunday Social is this Sunday, 20 July at the Cock Tavern, from 5pm and is totally free. 340 Kennington Road.
As Observer regulars will be aware, we love few things more than attending/disrupting a planning consultation, so we recently headed over to the wonderful Vauxhall City Farm to attend a consultation about the development of the Bondway site in Vauxhall. The site is at the far end of the bus shelter (more on that later) and sits in front of the Versace designed DAMAC tower where for £13 million you too can live in front of the bins at Fire Nightclub. But we digress.
When we entered the consultation we were greeted with signs reading ‘A New Vision for Vauxhall Square’. Frankly we weren’t aware that a Vauxhall Square even existed, but we went along with it as part of the mythmaking. Through a series of posters it was explained that the project will centre on two very large residential towers, with the largest topping out at almost 700 feet. St. George Wharf tower is 590 feet. 35% of this will be dedicated as social and student housing at affordable rents. When we asked how they define ‘affordable’, lets just say the answer was less than direct.
If it can be pulled off, Vauxhall Square has the potential to be interesting. A developer droned on about the exciting inclusion of a medical centre, cinema, bars, restaurants, and a library. To be honest we slightly nodded off at this stage as we’ve heard the ‘we’re giving back to the community’ spiel a hundred times. However, when said developer started to talk about the redevelopment of the railway arches, your scribe perked up and pointed out that some of these arches house nightclubs and restaurants that have been there for decades. Said developer said that they will not be affected. OK
To wake us up fully, we moved over to a 3D model of Vauxhall and got chatting to the perky and positive architect. He said that one goal is to create more walking/cycling areas free of traffic, which we support. As the two towers could actually be lifted out of the 3D model, we asked the architect if the buildings could be lifted over to Pimilco. He took this opportunity to tell us about how the project is funding more affordable housing around Lambeth, and we started to nod off again. The project will be delivered by 2030-2032.
And yes, the bus shelter will be going to that massive bus depot in heaven, but this is has nothing to do with the development at Vauxhall Square. Lambeth sold that scrappy piece of land in front of the bus shelter in 2013 with the agreement that the shelter would go to creating more pedestrianised spaces. On the scrappy piece of land will be two towers, 53 and 42 stories respectively (below), designed by Zaha Hadid and Partners, called Vauxhall Cross Island. This is Vauxhall, people, blink and you see something new at every turn. May the bins of Fire be testament to a more innocent and down to earth Vauxhall.
And yes, you can leave a comment here. But be nice, people, as we know what you lot are like.
We’re here to give you, dear reader, a voice, and if you’re feeling vocal the folks at Be In Vauxhall are once again hosting ‘Bearpit Karaoke’ this weekend. The press release describes it as ‘attracting huge crowds each month of both professional and non professional singers’. We walked by it last year and at first didn’t know if was Karaoke or some kind of weird spiritual revival. But it looked fun, and this year Mother Kelly’s will be on board, in addition to some food stalls. But if you’re anything like us (and you are) just go the corner shop to get some tinnies or wine and load up on crisps.
Bearpit Karaoke takes place this Saturday (12th) from 4 to 8 and then on every second Saturday of the month over the summer. It also takes place on 9.8 and 13.9. Free tickets can be nabbed here , but we’re pretty sure you can just rock up. It’s located at that sketchy bit at the end of the Pleasure Gardens where you indeed might be accustomed to seeing people singing, but for once it won’t be men on their own bursting into song while gripping a bottle of ‘White Lightning’ or Swifties at the altar of the Black Dog.
Also gracing Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens this summer is the Be In Vauxhall Summer Screen. If the weather obliges it’s a great way to spend a weeknight and enjoy a knees up and singalong with your mates. Also on board is Mother Kelly’s and local food stalls Bokit’la (Oval Market) French Caribbean. Howwever, if you’re saving money please see our comment above. Observer staff will be seeing Mean Girls for the fifteenth time, of course.
8 JUL AT 7PM – ENCANTO | BOOK YOUR PLACE
15 JUL AT 7PM – JUMANJI, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE | BOOK YOUR PLACE
22 JUL AT 7PM – MEAN GIRLS | BOOK YOUR PLACE
29 JUL AT 7PM – SISTER ACT 2 | BOOK YOUR PLACE
All of these nights look like great and please be aware that the films now start at 7pm. Tickets are free and according to the website should be booked. Having said that, we’re not really sure why you need to book a place at any of these events as you can take part by sitting on a car bonnet or hanging from a tree limb, so just turn up. It’s not like we expect Observer readers to oblige by the rules.
OK people. You all voted with you feet and in 2020 the Pink Elephant Shopping Centre went to that great shopping mall in the sky, and they even took the erotic massage chairs. This is whats going to replace it, please tell us that you’re now happy.
It will be called Elephant and Castle Town Centre, and it reminds us a bit of Westfield. You know Westfield, the place you tell your friends you’ve never been but secretly find yourself there because ‘its just has everything’.
