We’d like to share with you a fascinating clip of our local Tramp Charlie Chaplin visiting his old homes in central Kennington in 1959, where he lived in at least four places. In this home movie (at bottom) made by his wife, he first visits 287 Kennington Road, just behind the Doghouse Pub. The next home is at 3 Pownall Terrace, a now nonexistent row of homes just behind the Texaco in Kennington Road (and if your friends tell you that he lived in Pownell Terrace at the back of Kennington Park – smugly correct them). This flat is mentioned many times in his memoirs. And after a few scenes in West Square, Chaplin finds himself by a very different looking Methley Street where Chaplin, with his mum and brother, lived in the garret at number 39. Chaplin also famously lived at the Lambeth Workhouse which we wrote about in 2019. 

This video gives us a snippet of our hallowed patch in the 1950’s and is an interesting testament to how things change but at the same time remain constant.  After two minutes the video morphs into more of a traditional home movie, showing scenes of a rather dismal and tophatted London still recovering from bomb damage. And the brightest of you (which is most, as you’ve read this far), will see a brief glimpse of Chaplin’s old school, now the Lycee flats in Kennington Lane.