Do you remember a halcyon time when we could go to a place and have a drink with people we didn’t live with? Well those days will be upon us again in some kind of fashion on 4 July. Some of these pubs are gone forever, some others rebuilt, and few looking amazingly familiar. We could stare at the pictures all day, and enjoy….
The Victorian Elephant and Castle pub in Vauxhall, 1970. Same building, but now ‘Starbucks’. The King’s Arms pub, Chester Way and Kennington Lane, 1880. Destroyed in WW2, rebuilt 1946. The Horns Tavern, Kennington Road and Kennington Park Road., 1910. A local institution damaged in WW2 and never really recovered. That and a dislike of Victorian architecture meant its demise in 1965. Now JobCentre Plus and Nisa Foods.The Roebuck pub, 1972. Still very much there and known as The Dog House.The Cricketers pub in the Oval standing proudly on game day, 1957. Closed for aeons, but the building is still there.
The Tankard pub, Kennington Road, 1880. Altered through time, but looking amazingly familiar. The Vauxhall Tavern, 1950. The RVT had shops on either side of it and a thriving community behind until cleared for Spring Gardens in the late 1960’s. The Prince of Wales, Cleaver Square, 1973. The only thing different is the cars (and the house prices).
