Category Archives: Vauxhall

#3 Ten Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ 1 Sunday Roast)

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The Coriander

For reasons purely relating to research we quality controlled Coriander on New Year’s Eve, 2025 and it still deserves the number three spot.

Greater Kenningtontonians are almost as opinionated about their curry as their Sunday roast (which this years winner will surprise you all), but we find that the best hands down to be The Coriander in Vauxhall. We are aware that such a bold assertion is controversial and might make you want to hurl tarka dahl our way but since you don’t actually know who we are that’s not likely to happen.

Coriander specialises in North Indian, Bengali and Nepalese cuisine. The garlic naan is just right – not too thick and herbs going through it. For side dishes, the  baingon motor (aubergine) is  a standout treat, and their other starters cover all the bases of North Indian food. For the mains, our favourites are the chicken tikka naga (above) with hints of cloves, cumin and loads of heat.  All the good curry house standards are also in evidence, and we particularly like the handi laze, which is spicy chicken with chillies and fragrant cardamon, giving some zing with added lemon. And as with most Indian places, there are a range of vegetarian options. There are also a huge range of rices, and we prefer the good old fashioned pilau. And what would ANY good curry house without some slightly tacky murals?

Honourable mention in for Indian food goes to proper old school curry joint Gandhis in Kennington Cross which just missed our list. As you can see by the celebrity strewn pictures in the window, if it’s good enough for Richard and Judy, Neil and Christine Hamilton, and some lady who’s a dead ringer for Hyacinth Bucket then it has to be good enough for us mere mortals and may return to the list one day.

The Railings That Saved Lives

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From the archives, the third edition of our month of best history posts.

If you’re the observant or, in our case, intrusive sort you’ve probably noticed some unconventional appearing railings outside some estates in Greater Kennington. These didn’t start their life as estate railings, but rather as devices to save people’s lives. 

Our little railings atop an emergency vehicle

At the beginning of World War 2 London was stripped of many of its railings in order to be melted down for use as armaments. Whether they were actually used for this purpose or just an elaborate morale boosting PR stunt remains a point of debate. Ironically, the iron railings were removed at the same time as 600,000 iron stretchers were being mass produced in order to ferry away casualties from bombsites. Fortunately not nearly that many were ever needed or would be in future, so London had a whole lot of beds on her hands…. 

The WW2 stretchers produced during the war were cast iron and couldn’t be melted down into anything more practical afterwards, so in a rationed post war Britain someone devised the clever idea of sticking the stretchers on their sides, welding them together, and repurposing them for use as railings outside of public buildings. In this very early version of upcycling, they were reborn as fencing and exist in our estates to this day. Today our railings attract interest from around the world but sadly, like most of the staff here at the Runoff, are not being cared for properly and are in a sorry state of repair. 

Kennings Way, Kennington
Alverstone House, Oval

Stretcher railings are a very unique part of London’s quirky street furniture and we are fortunate to possess the lion’s share right here in our anointed patch. So next time you get a pesky little idea about going to the West End for a bit of culture, just pop over to your nearest estate. There is even a stretcher railing society for those of you who have a fence fetish. But if you do join, we suggest that you keep that one to yourself. 

Harleyford Road, Vauxhall

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 3 – Open House London 2025

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It’s that time of year again and one of our favourite activities here at the Observer….sticking our noses where they don’t belong! From 13 September to 21 September ii’s the Open House London Festival, celebrating London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods by flinging open doors and streets not usually open to the public. We have a few suggestion for you and they are all FREE, and we love free. Well, the last two aren’t free.

Most Open House venues have friendly staff on hand to tell you more about what you’re seeing and there are often things to read. If you look on the website you’ll see some local bookable things, but we’re afraid you’ve mostly missed the boat on those babies. The localish venues listed below are open to the public on specific dates, so look at opening times. However, if you possess the audacious gaul to travel out of Greater Kennington you might find there are hundreds more free things to stick your head into around the capital. But we couldn’t possibly encourage that kind of behaviour.

London Fire Brigade Memorial Hall (perhaps your last chance to see it before it is turned into, you guessed it, flats and a luxury hotel).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/11781

International Maritime Organisation (that bizarre looking building on Albert Embankment. pictured below)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/7730

Anderson WW2 Bomb Shelter (for the fetishists among you).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10010

St. Paul’s Newington  (Been and recommend. 1950’s beaut)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/2556

Walworth Garden (been and recommend, even if it is like a stroll through a garden centre)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10950

Soane Re-imagined – St. Peter’s Church

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/13342

Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library (been and recommend. Yes, it’s a trip to the library but with a museum stuck in it)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/9722

Van Gogh House London (Been and recommend. Its more about restoration than the great man so don’t expect any paintings or a severed ear).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/8317

Lots of other interesting things that are less than free such as an Elephant and Castle Walking Tour

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elephant-48

And Nine Elms Walking Tour (fun but also not free)

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elms-29

RVT Sports Day in Spring Gardens

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Looking for a fun distraction on what will probably be the last weekend of this steamy summer? Of course you are and so are we, and we can recommend nothing better than the charity raising and inclusive Royal Vauxhall Tavern Sports Day at the back of Spring Gardens on Monday 25 August from 1pm. Because we’re all about charity.

For the uninitiated, Sports Day is our own little Notting Hill carnival, with soca and steel drums substituted with handbag throwing, tug of war and drag queens.  The event is composed  of approximately 10 teams, usually dressed up and with great names. As you can imagine, there is a definite comedy element to the proceedings but is MC’ed by some professional sports reporters who corral events into a semblance of actual competition. The various tasks (egg and spoon, the 50 metre mince, drag race relay, etc) are constructed in a knockout format with the winning team being crowned at about 5pm. All proceeds go to charity LGBT Hero, which promotes health in the lesbian. trans and gay communities.

This event is free but bring some cash or a tappable phone as there will be charity buckets and volunteers about, and there is also a raffle.  The day is certainly not limited to a specific demographic and there are a number of families there with kids, older folks, and an overall sense of mirth abounds. There are bars, music and once in a while the cute critters from Vauxhall City Farm even pop over for a visit. We would never presume to tell you how to live your life, but for maximum enjoyment we might suggest a picnic consisting of ultraprocessed food scored from the corner shop. The website indicates a kickoff at 1, but is usually about 1:30. And If you are going please pop over and say hello to the Observer team. And good luck trying to find out what we look like, as we might even have a team ourselves.

The highlight of the day has to be the rhythmic gymnastics because, let’s be frank, you haven’t truly lived until you’ve witnessed a dozen men in jock straps and umbrellas dancing to ‘Barbie Girl’.

Raging Planet and The Power at Newport Street Gallery

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We just attended the premiere of two exciting new shows at Newport Street Gallery. And by ‘premiere’ we mean ‘the first day’ as people like us don’t get invited to actual premieres. Curated by the son of the man who owns the Gallery, Connor Hirst, in a strange manner the exhibits contrast and relate to one another. 

In the downstairs we find the exhibit ‘Raging Planet’, which is a group show of six different global artists who are endeavouring to incorporate the chaos which is inherent in our planet into their work, mostly by using elements found in the earth. So what we find are swirling, abstract paintings on aluminium. Other paintings feature pigments mixed with sawdust, and in one arresting piece large clumps of mud are painted over in a Franz Klein blue.

For us the best room is the last, where artist Richard Hiornes encrusts sculpture and paintings with copper sulphite crystals. What we see is a giant engine made inert by a residency of crystals and duelling cathedrals in the midst of a crystal invasion. So if what you demand in a show is rocks on the floor and even a small DJ booth, then this could be right up your avenue. You can dance and then fall over on a rock, recreating the experience of many Observer staff at Glastonbury.

More unsettling is the exhibit upstairs, ‘The Power and the Glory’, which is about nuclear weapons testing. We thought it was a strange contrast to the previous exhibit celebrating the earth as opposed to destroying it. The exhibit features a great deal of photos about nuclear weapons tests post WW2 in the Pacific . They are aesthetically pleasing if you can divorce this from their intended purpose, which we struggled to achieve. Mixed in with these are images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were destroyed. 

In the middle of the exhibit we have a beautiful exhibit of what are called ‘scholars rocks’. For centuries they have been collected in East Asia and appreciated by their abstract and wave like forms. As they are also associated with downfall,  one definition of a scholar rock is as a ‘weapon that shatters a dream’. Perhaps this therefore serves as poignant complement to the photos that surround them. 

Raging Planet and The Power and the Glory are on now until 31 August and, like love itself, is totally free. 

Unique in Black Prince Road.

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We’re blessed with an abundance of independent coffee shops in Greater Kennington, and we  recently paid a TKO (that’s The Kennington Observer) visit to new kid on the block ‘Unique’ in Black Prince Road. Located close to the Beaconsfield Galley, it inhabits that patch of land that calls itself Vauxhall but really isn’t.

Unique is a pleasing place to work for a few hours for those of you (not us as we’re in and underground bunker in Kennington Cross) fortunate enough to work from home a few days a week. In addition to teas and juices, they also have the traditional compliment of flat whites, Americanos, lattes, mochas and cappuchinos. And they even sell the coffee range ‘Curious Roo’. It is a quiet place to work and to listen to ambient music while chilling with middle class white people. They also serve croissants, cookies and brownies and have some bonkers art the walls.

And while we never objectify people at TKO based on looks alone, the staff are not bad to look at. 

Millicent Fawcett and Vauxhall Park

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The research division here at Observer have been working overtime 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 few 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. 

Vauxhall Park doesn’t look so inviting in March, but you get the point

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 in Oval. 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.  

Can You Help With Our Project?

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Some of you might think that the current Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is the open space that was created when the original Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was closed in 1859, but you’re mistaken. It was actually a vibrant, working class neighbourhood for over 100 years consisting of Glyn Street, Auckland Street and Italian Walk. It was destroyed developed by Lambeth into its current incarnation only in the mid 1970’s.  And believe it or not, the Vauxhall Tavern used to have shops and homes attached to it. The photo with the woman in it was taking in the early 1970’s in Goding Street in the sad dying days.

As we’re sure you are aware, we here at the Runoff are nothing if not highly academic. If you lived in this community or have any information about it we’d love to hear from you and feel free to email us at kenningtonrunoff@gmail.com . So you can be a staff member, or just act like one. Our online research has not exactly been, lets say ‘fruitful’, but we plan to go to Minet history reference library when we can muster the courage to leave Greater Kennington. 

Here is a lovely photo of a family who resided in Auckland Street in 1905. If you’re reading this from your heavenly perch then we welcome your feedback. We’ll get out our ouija board. 

The Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington #6

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+ One Sunday Roast

Brunswick House Restaurant

If money were no object then Brunwisck House would nab the top spot, but as money DOES matter they’ve bagged the still respectable six slot. Please note that restaurants on this scale have menus that change almost daily. So what you read below (from 2024) might not still be available.

If you’ve ever noticed a large Georgian mansion which appears to be on the precipice of getting inhaled by skyscrapers in the Vauxhall gyratory, it is called Brunswick House (and we’ve written about it here) and for several years they have run a critically acclaimed restaurant, in addition to its main hustle of selling (very) high end architectural salvage.

The dining room sits effortlessly in a large space in Brunswick House selling mostly chandeliers, light fittings and other gorgeous things. For an upmarket restaurant, the clientele was surprisingly young in a kind of ‘please come to my book launch next week’ kind of way. And no sooner do we sit down than we are joined at the next table by no other than TV presenter Miquita Oliver and a gaggle of her gorgeous, hair flicking friends! They were a nice complement to our botanical and creative cocktails, the favourite being their house eucalyptus martini. 

The menu at Brunswick House often requires a diction course or at least a dictionary. But fear not, the drilled to perfection serving staff can help you differentiate between a chicharron and a tardivo. And there is the very modern dilemma of trying to decipher a sharing plate from a mains. Highlights among the snack or starter sizes were the salt cod croquettes, the roasted leeks and the devilled eggs. The croquettes oozed with creamy salty fishiness, while the roasted leeks were winning for an innovative combination with a tangy sauce derived from red peppers and pecans. The devilled eggs had a seventies retro quality but the trout roe filling gave it a more on trend feel.

For the mains, your scribe had the roast cod with sea greens and spring vegetable chowder. The meaty and flaky cod was set off well with what appeared to be a tureen of well matched veg with an aniseed hit.  A big hit on the main size dishes was the fresh maccheroni (note proper Italian spelling). This packed a big flavour hit with the curious sounding combination of roast chicken butter, wild garlic and bottarga (translation: grey mullet roe). Curious it was but definitely lovely – rich and satisfying. 

Fancy Macaroi
Cod

And then, after a night spent with Maquita and her chums set amongst glittering chandiliers  and food we couldn’t pronounce, our night was over and we were deposited into a bus fumed traffic gyratory in Vauxhall. But the wonderful food made it worthwhile. This kind of food is by no means cheap, but one of the few glories of sharing portions is that you can just pop in for a snack of two £5 plates and they’re fine with that. 

J- Seven

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For purposes relating to our  wholly scientific and profoundly subjective top 10 list of the best places to eat in Greater Kennington (+ a Sunday roast) The Kennington Observer (formally known as the Runoff)  just paid a TKO visit to hot new Chinese restaurant J –Seven in Vauxhall. Our top ten list kicks off in a couple of weeks. But will it make the cut? 

J-Seven occupies one of the arches in Albert Embankment, and the arches typify the evolution of our storied manor. Previous inhabitants have included coal, railway sidings, gyms, motorbike shops and nightclubs. J-Seven has now pitched up in one of the arches offering upmarket(ish) Mandarin cuisine with the totally intoxicating element of lounge singers in the evening. Sadly we attended in the daytime with no singer evident. But the helpful manager Bear explained that there are singers most nights. 

J-Seven presents itself in that wonderfully Chinese restaurant manner of seeing customers as a slight inconvenience, and they prove this by plopping an Ipad in front of you to order. As Ipads came about only twelve years ago, we are very much up with the kids and your scribe ordered the slow braised brisket with rich sauce. This was proper slow braised beef with juicy fat on the sides, served with Chinese rice and a firey spicy cabbage which was delicious when mixed with the stewed meat juice. 

Very few of us at the Observer have real life partners as we’re overworked. However, you are luckier than us we again J-Social for a date owing to its banging cocktail bar in the front, the precise menu, low romantic lighting, and the food is properly Chinese. And when under the arches think about all those amazing women and men who might have worked there shovelling coal, building a railroad, dancing or just buying a motorbike. Our evolution continues.