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Kennington is a district in South London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the Lambeth and St George's parishes of those boroughs respectively. It is located south of Charing Cross in Inner London and is identified as a local centre in the London Plan. It was a royal manor in the parish of St Mary, Lambeth in the Surrey and was the administrative centre of the parish from 1853. Proximity to central London was key to the development of the area as a residential suburb and it was incorporated into the metropolitan area of London in 1855.
Kennington is the location of three significant London landmarks: the Oval cricket ground, the Imperial War Museum, and Kennington Park. Its population at the United Kingdom Census 2011 was 15,106.
Edward III gave the manor of Kennington to his oldest son Edward the Black Prince in 1337, and the prince then built a large royal palace in the triangle formed by Kennington Lane, Sancroft Street and Cardigan Street, near to Kennington Cross. In 1377, according to John Stow, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster came to Kennington to escape the fury of the people of London. Geoffrey Chaucer was employed at Kennington as Clerk of Works in 1389. He was paid 2 shillings. Kennington was the occasional residence of Henry IV and Henry VI. Henry VII was at Kennington before his coronation. Catherine of Aragon stayed at Kennington Palace in 1501. In 1531, at the order of King Henry VIII, most of Kennington Palace was dismantled, and the materials were used in the construction of the Palace of Whitehall.
The historical manor of Kennington continues to be owned by the current monarch's elder son (the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall: see Dukes of Cornwall). The Duchy of Cornwall maintains a substantial property portfolio within the area.
The area was significant enough, however, to be recognised in the Peerage of Great Britain and in 1726, the title Earl of Kennington was assumed by Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.
The development of Kennington came about through access to London, which happened when, in 1750, Westminster Bridge was constructed. In 1751, Kennington Road was built from Kennington Common (as it then was; now Kennington Park) to Westminster Bridge Road.
By the 1770s, the development of Kennington into its modern form was well underway. Terraces of houses were built on the east side of Kennington Road and Cleaver Square (then called Prince's Square) was laid out in 1788.It derived its name from the two houses on Kennington Park Road flanking the entrance to the square, built for Joseph Prince by Michael Searles in the 1760s. The name was changed to Cleaver Square in 1937, named after Mary Cleaver who had owned the land in the 18th century. On Cleaver Square, see further below. Michael Searles, architect and developer, built semi-detached houses along Kennington Park Road in the 1790s.
A fraudster from Camberwell, named Badger, was the last person to be hanged at Kennington Common, in 1799.
In the early nineteenth century, Kennington Common was a place of ill-repute. Various attempts were made by the Grand Surrey Canal to purchase the land to build a canal basin, but all of these failed. Because the area had been so rapidly developed and populated in the second half of the eighteenth century, by the nineteenth century, the Common was no longer used for grazing cattle and other agricultural purposes. It became a rubbish dump, a meeting place for radical crowds and an embarrassment to the area. Common rights were extinguished over one corner of the land and in 1824, St. Mark's Church was built on the site of the gallows. One of the four "Waterloo Churches" of south London, the church was opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1852, at the initiative of the minister of St. Mark's Church, the Common was enclosed and became the first public park in south London.
Pockets of land between the main roads were built upon in the early nineteenth century. Walcot Square and St Mary's Gardens were laid out in the 1830s on land formerly used as a market garden. Imperial Court, on Kennington Lane, was built in 1836 for the Licensed Victuallers' School. The first stone was laid by Viscount Melbourne, in the name of King William IV.
The Oval cricket ground was leased to Surrey County Cricket Club from the Duchy of Cornwall in 1845, and the adjacent gasometers (themselves an international sporting landmark) were constructed in 1853.
Dense building and the carving-up of large houses for multiple occupation caused Kennington to be "very seriously over-populated in 1859, when diphtheria appeared" (recorded by Karl Marx in Das Kapital).Willey, Russ; Chambers London Gazetteer; Chambers Harrap (2006); p. 267
The church of St John the Divine, Kennington, which was to be described by the poet John Betjeman as "the most magnificent church in South London", was designed by George Edmund Street (architect of the Royal Courts of Justice on Strand, London), and was built between 1871 and 1874.
The Durning Library, at Kennington Cross, was designed in 1889 by S. Sidney R. J. Smith, architect of the Tate Gallery (as it then was; now Tate Britain), and is a fine example of the Gothic Revival style. The library was a gift to the people of Kennington from Jemina Durning Smith.
A men's public convenience, which had been built opposite in 1898, is now preserved as an ArtsLav and is likely to have been used by a young Charlie Chaplin who writes in his autobiography of a night when he was locked out of the family room and listened all night to the music in the newly opened White Hart pub, now The Tommyfield. When his mother fell on hard times he was taken with his brother Sydney Chaplin to another Kennington landmark the old Lambeth Workhouse now the home of the Cinema Museum.
Kennington station was opened as "Kennington (New Street)" in 1890 by the City of London and Southwark Subway, but is in fact on the boundary of Newington, Surrey and Kennington and as such is now in the London Borough of Southwark.
The poverty map of London, created by Charles Booth in 1898–99, identifies a mixture of classifications for the streets of the district; Kennington Park Road, for example, corresponds with the description "Middle class. Well-to-do". Most streets are classified as "Mixed. Some comfortable, others poor". There are also several scattered streets which are considered to be "Poor. 18s. to 21s. a week for a moderate family". The map shows that there existed in the district a great disparity of wealth and comfort between near-neighbours.
Kennington ceased to be the administrative centre for the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth (as it then was) in 1908. The Old Town Hall, built on Kennington Road as a vestry hall for the local parish, was not large enough for the Council to properly carry out its functions and a new town hall was built in Brixton. The Old Town Hall was the registered office of the Countryside Alliance until September 2015.
In 1913, Maud Pember Reeves selected Kennington for Round About a Pound a Week, which was a survey of social conditions in the district. She found "respectable but very poor people who live over a morass of such intolerable poverty that they unite instinctively to save those known to them from falling into it".Mrs Pember Reeves, "Round About a Pound a Week", London, G. Bell and Sons, pp. 39–40
In an initiative to improve the district, from 1915, the Duchy of Cornwall set about an ambitious project to redevelop land. Courtenay Square, Courtenay Street, Cardigan Street, Denny Street and Denny Crescent were laid out to a design by architects Stanley Adshead, Stanley Ramsey and JD Coleridge, in a Neo-Georgian style.
In 1922, Lambeth Hospital on Brook Drive was created from a former workhouse. Under the control of the London County Council, Lambeth Hospital, which had a capacity of 1,250 patients in 1939, was one of the largest hospitals in London. After the National Health Service was formed, Lambeth Hospital became an acute general hospital. In 1976, the North Wing of St. Thomas' Hospital opened; services transferred there, and Lambeth Hospital was closed. A substantial part of the site has today been redeveloped for apartments, although some buildings are occupied by the Lambeth Community Care Centre.
Kennington station was substantially remodelled in 1925 to accommodate the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line along with the improvements to the City and South London Railway to form the Northern line. Because tram and bus routes converged at Kennington, in the 1920s St. Mark's became known as the "tramwayman's church", and Kennington was referred to as the "Clapham Junction of the southern roads".See 2
By 1926, construction of the Belgrave Hospital for Children, designed by Henry Percy Adams and Charles Holden, was complete. The hospital was subsumed within the King's College Hospital Group and closed in 1985. It was restored and converted to apartments in 1994.
In the 1930s, the Duchy of Cornwall continued to redevelop its estate in the district and employed architect Louis de Soissons to design a number of buildings in a Neo-Georgian style.
On 15 October 1940, the large trench air-raid shelter beneath Kennington Park was struck by a 50 lb bomb. The number of people killed remains unknown; it is believed by local historians that 104 people died. Forty-eight bodies were recovered.
The Brandon Estate was endowed in 1962 by the London County Council with Reclining Figure No. 3: a sculpture by Henry Moore.
St Agnes Place was a street of mid-Victorian terraces built for the servants of Buckingham Palace. Lambeth Council had decided to demolish the street to extend Kennington Park and the houses were empty by the late 1960s. In 1969, squatters moved into one of the houses and later entered the other empty properties and established a Rastafari temple. The street became London's longest-running squat. From 1977, Lambeth Council sought to evict the squatters and eventually succeeded at the High Court in 2005. The houses and the temple were declared to be unfit for human habitation and were pulled down in 2007. The Kennington Park Extension now covers much of the site.
Lambeth Council designated much of Kennington a Conservation Area in 1968, the boundary of which was extended in 1979 and in 1997. Lambeth Council's emphasis on conserving and protecting Kennington's architectural heritage and enhancing its attractive open spaces for recreation and leisure is illustrated by restoration of the centre of the listed Cleaver Square in the last decade of the twentieth century. Originally grassed over in the 1790s, the centre of Cleaver Square had by the 1870s become a garden circumscribed by a formal path, but by 1898 it had been cultivated as a nursery with greenhouses. In 1927 the centre of Cleaver Square was acquired by the London County Council to forestall a proposal to build on it, and more trees were then planted and the garden was gravelled over as a recreation ground. During the war years, in particular, the recreation area became somewhat derelict but during the 1950s Cleaver Square's inherent charm was recognised anew and its fortunes once more began to rise. In 1995, Lambeth Council resolved, with the backing of English Heritage, a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and donations from residents of Cleaver Square, to restore the centre of the square to provide once again an attractive and peaceful public space for the people of Kennington.Cliff Baylis CB, Chairman of the Cleaver Square Residents' Association from 1993 to his death in 1998, was instrumental in ensuring this initiative became a reality. In the summer months many people from Kennington and further afield play pétanque in the centre of the square.
It is difficult to identify a single defining reason for this change. The principal factors are location and transport. The good architectural and structural quality of many properties in Kennington – characterised by Georgian and Victorian terraces of yellow London stock brick, typically three storeys or higher, fronting the main roads and squares – has unquestionably contributed to the gentrification of the area. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of housing in the area is council-owned, including some council estates adjacent to Kennington Lane, leading up to Elephant and Castle, and around the Kennington Park area. In the twenty-first century there has been an ongoing programme by Lambeth Council of upgrading its stock of housing and in many cases improving its external appearance. The area's varied social texture demonstrates the population mix.
Kennington is a standalone ward itself represented by three Labour Party councillors. Council elections take place every four years, with the next one scheduled in 2026.
The Member of Parliament for the Vauxhall and Camberwell Green constituency, which includes Kennington, is currently the Labour Co-operative MP Florence Eshalomi, who has been the MP since December 2019. It is within the Lambeth and Southwark London Assembly constituency.
Nearest places: Vauxhall, Waterloo, Walworth, Newington (usually known as Elephant and Castle), Stockwell, Camberwell, Brixton, and North Lambeth.
Kennington is within the Division bell zone for the Houses of Parliament. This means that, at least in theory, it is within eight minutes from the division lobbies of the Houses of Parliament. A large number of members of parliament and civil servants live within the area. An article in The Sunday Times described Kennington as "the politicians' enclave across the Thames from Westminster"; and The Times observed that "Kennington ... is the suburb that has featured the most in the MPs' expenses scandal. Hazel Blears and Alistair Darling are only two of the ministers with Kennington second homes".
Kennington Road and Kennington Lane, south of Kennington Cross, could properly be described as the "shopping area" of Kennington. This area is identified as a "Local Centre" in the London Plan. There is a range of local shops, restaurants, cafés and estate agents, and there is a post office. There is a Tesco supermarket on Kennington Lane. The area has a number of pubs and some bars. There are two theatres in Kennington: the White Bear Theatre and the Oval House Theatre and the area has an active residents' association called the Kennington Association. The Friends of Kennington Park is a local organisation, involved with the promotion of Kennington Park as a valuable resource for the community. Kennington is also home of The Cinema Museum – a popular local venue for watching films and learning about the history of cinema.
A weekly farmers' market takes place on a Saturday from about 10 am to 3 pm at St. Mark's Church opposite Oval tube station.
The distillery of Beefeater Gin – the only premium gin still distilled in London – is situated in Montford Place, Kennington.
The City and Guilds of London Art School, one of the longest-established art colleges in the country, has been at Kennington Park Road since 1879.
Kennington in literature and film
The Park, historically, was a place for executions, a Speakers' Corner for public gatherings for political and religious purposes, and a place for entertainment and sporting events.
In the 1730s, Methodists John Wesley and George Whitefield preached to thousands on Kennington Common. In 1746 the Surrey County Gallows at the southern end of the Common was used for the execution of nine leaders of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The Common was also where the Chartism gathered for their biggest demonstration in 1848. "The Gymnastic Society" met regularly at Kennington Common during the second half of the eighteenth century to play football.Harvey, Adrian (2005) Football, the First Hundred Years: the untold story Routledge; p. 54 The Society – sometimes claimed to be the world's first football club – consisted of London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmorland.
The tradition of political gathering at Kennington Park in advance of marches upon Parliament returned in the 1970s. In 1986, the Park was the location for the Gay Pride march of that year, and for several years thereafter. On 31 March 1990, some 200,000 people amassed at Kennington Park to march upon Trafalgar Square, in protest against the Community Charge. This, during the course of the day, escalated into mass disturbances: the Poll Tax Riots. In April 1997, a march organised by Reclaim the Streets set off from the Park for central London; and in May 2004, the Park was the starting point for a march to the Cannabis Festival at Brockwell Park. In March 2007, the Archbishop of Canterbury preached at Kennington Park to mark the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807. The Park had been a significant location for important anti-slave trade rallies. In March 2011, the Park was the South London starting point for a feeder march to the 2011 anti-cuts protest in London. In November 2012, the Park was the location of the "Demo 2012" student rally against higher tuition fees.
The presence of the Oval as a large green space available for cricket is down to an unrealised street plan. For many years prior to its use as a cricket ground, this area was used as a cabbage garden.
Oval tube station is also on the Northern line.
Other nearby stations include Lambeth North on the Bakerloo line and Vauxhall station on the Victoria line. Vauxhall is also on the National Rail network. All trains are operated by South Western Railway in or out of Waterloo.
The Northern line extension to Battersea links the station to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station.
Santander Cycles, a London-wide bicycle-sharing system, operates in Kennington.
There is one secondary school within the Kennington area:
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