Walcot Square and its little sister St. Mary Square in north Kennington hold unique histories in our peculiar patch of the planet and serve as reminders of the altruistic nature of our forbearers. In an era where most of our patch was run by the Duchy of Cornwall,  this bit of damp farmland was  bequeathed by Edmund Walcot with the intention of helping the poor. We love that.

In the late Georgian era small landowners sold the end of their land on Kennington Road to developers keen to build boujie suburban homes to wealthily folks keen to escape the bustle and pollution of central London. Little did they know that the industrial revolution was swarming their direction and Greater Kennington became the repository of smelly factories that London needed but didn’t want to inhale.  So those rich folks moved to Clapham or Dulwich, and good riddance.

We’re now in the early 19^th century and the slightly weird trapezoid nature of these squares reflect  the roads that were around them, which needed to navigate  the Georgian homes in Kennington Road to deliver what they were producing. By this time the boujie homes were multiple occupancy, later housing Charlie Chaplin and his family.  The fields were drained in the 1830’s and the homes we see today were built for families in need. Little architecture exists from this exact period as people didn’t want to risk building on spots surrounded by vinegar works and tar factories.

We’ve now unquestionably whetted your appetite to explore these quirky squares, and to take a break you could do a lot worse than having a cuppa at the delightful Walcot Stores coffee shop. Walcot Stores was once a small grocers, the kind which once predominated in our  area. Its former life is wonderfully captured in this clip from 1990 films ‘The Krays’. Trigger warning – There are references to UHT milk and a guy from Spandau Ballet kicking the shit out of someone.