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Welcome to the Camberwell Online blog, a place for free and spirited exchange on anything with even a tangential connection to the South-East London district.
Happy Monday
Published by Peter | Filed under Eating & Drinking, Nearby, Shopping
I wish you all a good afternoon. Just a flying update, this:
As I tucked into a satisfying ‘almonds & apricots with yoghurt coating Eat Natural‘ bar the other day, I took a look at the company information on the back and was surprised to see the legal address: 95 Camberwell Station Rd, London SE5 9JJ.
Yes, ‘the UK’s fastest-growing snack bar’ (doesn’t that make it sound like Frankenstein food?) is made right here in SE5. And not in a factory or a bakery; no, this snack is made in their - wait for it - Makery. We have a Makery here!
(Whilst I’m being snarky, is it really necessary to advise consumers of an ‘almonds & apricots with yoghurt coating’ bar that it contains nuts?)
A quick reminder that the AGM of the SE5Forum will take place next Wednesday at the Institute of Psychiatry (you don’t have to be mad, etc). This is a bit of a reboot of the Forum, so it’s a good time to go along. Chelsea fans will be unable to attend as that night sees them play Everton, but to be honest we’re better off without them anyway. Ooh! Football humour!
Went to the Peckham Farmer’s Market again yesterday. There’s a new goat’s dairy stall and a smaller vegetable stall with lots of different types of cabbage. Here’s wishing them success.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Nice to know that posh snakc are being made on Camberwell station road along side the garages, ice cream van storage and the bus station. They must keep their “makery” fairly anonymous as livign in the vicinity i walk down Camberwell Station Road very frequently and i’ve never noticed them at all!
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January 14th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I dont think they are actually made in Camberwell - its more the marketing of the snacks. The company behind the Eat Natural brand is Multiple Marketing Limited which is based in Camberwell - http://www.sunmagic.co.uk/aboutus.htm. The actual food production is carried out by its Multiple Marketing’s parent company RM Curtis - http://www.rmcurtis.co.uk/
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January 14th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
No, I’m pretty sure they’re made here, in a Wonka-like Makery of unimaginable delights.
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January 14th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
However there are quite a few catering companies based in and around Camberwell Station Road and Denmark Road - including the Admirable Crighton- a rather posh catering firm - so the idea is not as odd as it sounds.
There are some rather odd and unexpected companies based in Camberwell - for example the strange Tower Heritage on Denmark Road
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Posh snake sounds good, Hannah. Are you the one on Camberwell Station Road that looks like Eve? Cor! You don’t ‘alf brighten up that road, sashaying down there.
Otherwise, it’s just car bits and the crazed Rastas at the end selling separatism and flags.
Boy, are we pleased to see you, on our way to collect our parcels from Her Majesty!
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:35 am
There’s often a lot of very good soup smells around Camberwell Station Road. Never figured out where it emanates from. 5 Star caterers are along there but I think they do ice cream vans and stainless steel drum barbecues. Admirable Crighton are just round the corner.
Think Mumu’s right with Multiple Marketing. Natural Cardboard.
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January 15th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Posh snacks? Shop local.
http://tinyurl.com/yqp9qc
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January 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Excellent find R Soles
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January 15th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
In Camelford, Cornwall, where the wonderful bicycle museum is, there is a machine hire company called R. Sleep.
I am wondering if Camberwell should seek twin-town status with Camelford.
Is Cranford already twinned?
Does anyone else have ideas of with whom Camberwomb should be twinned with?
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January 15th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I think we should at the very least twin with our namesake in Melbourne, Australia. It seems like they have a very nice market there. And a cinema.
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January 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Welcome to Camberwell - twinned with Camberwell. That’s a good start.
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January 16th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Thanks, Mark. But, please, call me Robert. No, really, please do call me Robert.
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January 16th, 2008 at 1:02 am
“Never knowingly undersoled.”
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January 16th, 2008 at 1:18 am
That would be Freeman, Hardy and Willis. We had one of those once as well.
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January 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Robert. Very good find. Are we to believe there was a Waitrose in Camberell in 1921 then? Selling teas and coffees? Or perhaps a central warehouse for distribution of fine comestibles to the rest of London. Seriously anything more might be an interesting lever for persuading John Lewis to venture here again sometime…
Speaking of Central Warehouses. I’m not familiar with SALES techniques when shopping. A frined pointed out that Shoe Fayre’s CLOSING DOWN SALE is not due to the shop in closing Camberwell but because the Central Warehouse is closing.
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January 16th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Twinned with Camelot. Slogan - “Perhaps Arthur’s last restin’ place is ‘ere”.
Is this the most tawdry, blatant and unlikely pitch at creating a local tourist industry in recent inner city London history?
Perhaps. But if TfL can agree to give all Camberwell amenities a 20mph zone for adjoining sections of red routes, it could work; Waitrose too.
Hmm.. let’s take a closer look at which mayoral candidate would be most sympathetic to the idea.
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January 16th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
And Jude Law’s sister lives in Camberwell and loves it.. anyone see that in London Lite last night?
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January 16th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
London Lite really is an amazing source of interesting stories.
PS My sister lives in Margate and loves it.
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January 16th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Wot, Natasha?
She studied at Camberwell I hear.
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January 16th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
@16 regenguru you seem a bit obsessed with this 20 mph zone. I watched Newsnight the other night and Martin Cassini was on campaining for abolishing traffic lights, street signs and road markings http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/video/default.stm
I have been interested in his approach for a few years which enables everyone to think about everyone else.
Perhaps Camberwell could opt for this solution and turn the crossraods at Camberwell Green into a lovely piazza type thing.
And perhaps allowing everyone to use common sense and cooperate with each other. Instead of the pedestrians hate cyclists hate car drivers hate buses threads that often turn up on this blog. I would vote for any mayoral candidate that supported Cassini’s ideas, TFL did not want to take part which is a shame.
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January 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Gnomee - I saw the report. Interesting and imaginative, especially the challenge to TfL to look at the pavement and street scape as part of surrounding architecture, as I have argued elsewhere.
Here’s the simple reason it would not work:
Drivers who knock down pedestrians on the Continent are punished far more severely than in the UK. Some here think that’s OK because “anyone c’d ‘ave an accident”. I say that drivers should bear the same legal responsibilties to their victims as air traffic control or commercial pilots.
Meanwhile, cyclist boxes at traffic lights are a useful means of asserting the right - which some dispute with violence - of cyclists to use the road.
PS, I am trying to stoke interest in a mayoral debate. Some forget that TfL is not an independent behemoth, but purely the creature of the Mayor. The culture of TfL will always tend to reflect the personality of the incumbent Mayor.
The putative mayors are now in pledge mode and you can debate their merits on http://www.se5forum.org.
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January 16th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Regenguru, I disagree it is because everyone is put into different boxes that we get conflict with different road users (including pedestrians)this creates the idea that I have a right and I am going to defend it attitude.
I think it would work as everyone will have to go slower to see what is going on rather than obeying the lights and defending your right to go regardless of everyone else. Maybe I am just an idealist but I have seen it work in Denmark and Holland. Most importantly it could increase air quality as it should get rid of standing traffic.
TFL seem to have a vested interest in creating more traffic controls at junctions over the past 5 years, reminds me to check who is donating to the mayoral campaigns
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January 16th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Mark. Who knows? It’s a sad day when you can’t believe everything you read on a box of matches but there’s no mention of it anywhere else. We’ll see what Waitrose have to say.
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January 17th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Remember this?:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/370765844/in/pool-camberwell_se5
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January 17th, 2008 at 1:59 am
“Quality Never Goes Out Of Style”
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January 17th, 2008 at 10:01 am
On traffic a few things:
1. look at Kensington High street - a good example of an imaginative road scheme- it works too!
2. It’s worth remebering that TfL can only do so much - they only have responsibility for red routes not all of Londons roads.
3. I would advocate everyone being forced to retake their driving test every ten years - part of the problem is that London in particular is cursed with some shockingly bad drivers - and pedestrians - i despair when i see people at the traffic lights by the Silver Buckle running in front of buses and cars. It seems the traffic light filtering system around Camberwell Green is far to complicated for most Camberwell drivers and pedestrians to comprehend -perhaps we need to revive the Tufty club but include adults!!
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I also dispair at the traffic lights outside the Silver Buckle and in fact all around the Green - they have been designed with the interests of motorists and buses to the fore not the interests of pedestrians in what should be a vibrant town centre. Due to the huge four lane road both sides of Denamrk Hill feel cut off from each other having to be crossed in two or three stages, similarly Camberwell Road feels totally cut off from Church Street. What is need is for TfL to take a lead and re-engineer the junction so that it is more pedestrian friendly.
Removing all the railings would be a start but they shouldnt stop there - they need to make the pavements wider so that the road is clearly prioritised as a pedestrian road, narrow the road down to one lane and yes implement a 20mph speed limit. They should also look at the junction with Coldharbour Lane outside Nandos. We should get on to our GLA member Valerie Shawcross - she is politically close to Ken in this election year hopefully would be willing to give undertakinsg to do something - afterall her majority of 6,000ish could be vulnerable
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January 17th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Gnomee - I think the UK’s different cultural and legal approach to motoring accidents (non-implementation of EU Directive on motorist insurance liability for cyclist accidents), alcohol and climate change, compared to Germany and the Benelux, gives a clue to difficulties with Cassini’s approach, which would definitely require a 20mph limit around junctions.
Mumu makes an excellent point that streetscenery is designed exclusively around the motorist. Why? There’s no evidence the motorist contributes more than the localist pedestrian to the London economy, yet we know of the socio-economic damage done by high throughput of motor vehicles. The lazy myth that the economy is centred around cars continues to be perpetuated without proof.
I would agree with Hannah that TfL are not the only culprits, although clearly the streets and pavements they control in SE5 are the most important in Camberwell.
Take the opportunity of the Mayoral Elections to ask all of the candidates - including Ken as I do believe in Damascene conversions - what they would do for Camberwell if (re)elected.
And whether the candidate would be willing to recognise, through institutional change with funding, the social and economic aspects of pavement stewardship, for the first time since the Mayoralty in its current form was incepted.
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January 17th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
It’s a known fact that Ken doesn’t care much about South London.
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January 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Err… i guess if more people raised the issues, they’d more attention from the authorities.
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January 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Peter are you aware of this:
http://londonist.com/2008/01/london_bloggers_1.php
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January 17th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Theres been another stabbing in the ‘hood - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23432827-details/Girl,+13,+knifed+in+playground/article.do
this time a 13 year old girl.
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January 17th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I read about that this morning, and was trying to think of a way to write about it without getting furious. It’s so sad;
“A girl of 13 was stabbed twice in a school playground in a suspected gang attack linked to drugs.”
That’s such an incongruous sentence.
“Her boyfriend is in a gang and another gang came to get her. That’s what they do - they get the people you love because it hurts more.”
Fucking baby gangsters.
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January 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
“This is neutral territory where all the gangs from Brixton and Peckham come to fight”.
Yep. That’s Camberwell.
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January 17th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Terrible news.
This stretch of red route is part of NEW Camberwell, that part of Camberwell which has never received strategic attention, neither from public nor third sector, and whose only hope lies in praying for London-wide changes in policy by getting red route communities onto the debating agenda of the Mayoral Election 2008.
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Red Route:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/379737417/
Sacred Heart:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/379740739/
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
@1 & 2etc Camberwell Station Road and Multiple Marketing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/2199929081/
On the subject of marketing, and mulitple, I had a meeting with Mark McGowan this evening (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2199939387&size=l) and it’s finally confirmed (we’ve been talking since late last summer) that he’s doing a project at The Sun and Doves which runs from 20 March to 18 April 2008. Broadly, at 8pm every night for thirty nights a performance piece will take place in or around the pub. Every night will feature a different artist, a different medium, a different slant. No two performances will be the same length, they will wrap around films quizzes, music and anything else we do on a regular basis. Many very well recognised artists, curators, authors writers and performers have agreed to take part already. The diary isn’t finalised yet. Will be by early February.
The performances and appearances will be recorded, photographed, drawn and filmed, broadcast and stuck up on the walls during the month, making a growing, changing show that customers and artists will respond to as it evolves and develops a life of its own.
‘SE5 SCENE’ Meant to remind here earlier in the week that Beverley Carpenter & Karen Lois Whiteread are projecting onto Camberwell Magistrates’ court at night this week 6-10pm. Don’t miss it tomorrow 18th or Saturday 19th January.
Good night!
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January 18th, 2008 at 8:30 am
It’s a very good school by all accounts, despite the red-route. So Neo-Camberwell isn’t without hope: it has the area’s best secondary.
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January 18th, 2008 at 10:22 am
sorry I don’t know this, but where’s the magistrate’s court, Mark?
other thing sounds great too.
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January 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am
It’s not a bad school, really - You can be sure that they will come down like a ton of bricks in true Roman Catholic authoritarian style (it’s o.k I’m allowed to say that) on the perpetrator and that he will never darken their doors again…
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January 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
The Plough opporsite S&D is starting to look very swish with it’s new paint job…
Is it a still going to be a pub or are they converting it into a restaurant?
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January 18th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
@39 Tanera; Magistrates courts: Red Star end of Camberwell Green, at the far side of the green from Camberwell Road there is a piazza with trees and the courts beyond as here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/399602759/
The road running down the right side of the bulding is D’Eynsford. The projections are on that side of the building.
Well worth the effort going to see if it’s not cats and dogs. Even then will be spectacular but you will get wet.
@eusebiovic. The Plough. Going to ask the builders now.
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January 18th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@ 41 yes the Plough has been taken on by Nice & Spice and is going to be a restaurant. Jamaican leaning I presume.
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January 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Anyone tried the portugese custard tarts from Caravaggio. They are called ‘natas’.
Give them a go.
Looking forward to a weekend of decorating. I will be buying paint and the like from Camberwell Superstore so maybe I can duck into the Hermit’s. Maybe..
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January 18th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I posted a whole PhD yesterday about the Sacred Heart incident but static got the better of the modem and my whole electronic micro-civilisation collapsed.
Weirdly enough, what saved me yesterday from being as splutteringly angered as Peter by the stabbing was the cone in the road just by the Plough pub aforementioned by Eusebiovic, etc, I was cycling home past Sacred Heart - mounted police, many more at great public expense combing a grassy knoll looking for the weapon - and saw the big hole in the middle of the road in which contractors or the council or whoever had carefully, neatly placed a traffic cone. That made me laugh.
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January 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Mark @ 42/43 - Thank you sir,
Ahhh! Nice and Spice… I’ve bought the odd pattie or two there on occasion and the bakery always smells good when I walk past, especially in winter
I wish them the best of luck with their endeavours we need more places like that along Coldharbour Lane and Loughborough Junction - especially the latter…
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January 18th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Sounds good! I’ll look forward to trying it. I agree the Nice and Spice already smells great however i am always a bit confused as to what to order so haven’t been in there yet. I should take a leaf out of Alans book and just go in and ask!!
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January 18th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I got the name wrong it’s Spice and Nice. Having been recommended the Jerk chicken by several people. I bought the Jerk chicken and it made me feel very sick.
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January 18th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I arks you, what a jerk -
Mock, erm jerst havin a jerk -
Am livin in a town
Where th drugs dont werk
They cut each other bout LSD
wernt like tha in mah dee
am trine t speak
urban, see
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January 19th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Ah heas yo rap Dags babe; ahs stayin in tinite cos mi man’s a willin and ahm a gonna be chillin wid mi woman in mi crib.
Actually she’s out having a good time with friends and alcohol and cigarettes and I’m having my own good time boy sitting.
Beverley Carpenter at the Courts:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/sets/72157603747961363/
Everyone invited to the last night from 6-10pm. There’s a mobile fish and chip shop there tomorrow night from 7 o’clock. Come along and take some English food at its best and a few snaps of a little bit of hsitory being made.
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January 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
That’s great. Let’s all go. Fish, chips and cheap red wine, brill.
Gail Porter on the Houses of Parliament, whilst poor Clare Short will not agree, was in the Lady Godiva and Emperor’s New Clothes tradition of stripping the balderdash from the bare truth.
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January 20th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Fish and Chips on the street:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2242/2204024353_94bc800263.jpg
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January 20th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I am gutted that last night I was sat on my sofa watching crap tv when I could have been eating fish and chips and watching Beverley Carpenter’s projections.
In other news, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claims to have bought a kebab in Peckham recently, which shows she’s down with the kids. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7198508.stm
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January 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
The main problem that this country faces is that the goverment refuses to accept that anything is wrong… and, as everyone knows, until you admit you have a problem, there’s not a damn chance that that problem will be rectified.
Jacqui Smith, when replying to a question about the Garry Newlove murder, stated on last Thursday’s Question Time that she did not accept that the UK is a ‘broken country’.
The bitter irony being that if the nature of the murder, and the murderers, of Garry Newlove does not clearly show a person that the UK is a broken country then that person will never admit that to be the case.
I would dearly like to ask Jacqui Smith to outline how she thinks anything could be any worse than the entire Garry Newlove saga. I’m sure Swellings and Co. could have finished by raping the man’s 13 year old daughter over his dying body and the likes of Jacqui Smith would still claim everything’s just fine.
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January 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Prostitute murders are not a new phenomenon attributable to the current government.
Lots of broken records but no broken country.
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January 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Maybe that nice Radio 4 programme “Open Country” should have an urban companion, “Broken Country”, along the lines of, “Today we’re in Camberwell, south London, and I’m talking to Margret Thatcher who has been grumblin’ and’ grizzlin’ round these parts for centuries…”
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January 20th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
You got in just before me, Alan. “Broken records”, very good! Very good! Very good!
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January 20th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
You need to read more history, Margret; people have been complaining about casual violence and a broken society for hundreds of years, and yet somehow we all still manage to keep going.
Here’s a short quotation from Mr Misson’s Memoirs and Observations, published 1719:
“If two little boys squabble in the street, the passengers stop, make a ring around them in a moment, and set them against each other, that they may come to fisticuffs… and these bystanders are not only other boys, porters, and rabble, but all sorts of men of fashion, some thrusting by the mob that they may see plainly, others getting upon stalls, and all would hire places, if scaffolds could be built in a moment.”
And from A Tour of London by J. P. Grosley, 1772:
“As [my servant] was returning home through Oxford-road… he was attacked by two or three blackguards… They began to drag him about by the skirts of his coat, and by his shoulder-knot. Seven or eight campaigns, which he had served with an officer in the gens-d’armes… had not sufficiently inured him to bear this rough treatment.”
I recommend Peter Ackroyd’s London: A Biography, which explains how we have seen and heard it all before down the ages.
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January 20th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
This is not a broken country.
Zimbabwe is a broken country.
WE have the luxury of being able to think things are broken because we’re able to imaging it being a lot better… Fact is humans haven’t learned how to run their societies properly yet. We’re still dragging ourselves out of the stone age.
Liberty Equality Fraternity are still a long way away.
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January 20th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I just followed the ‘the AGM of the SE5Forum will take place next Wednesday at the Institute of Psychiatry’ link at the head of the thread and got to the ‘Eat Natural’ website! I like that
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January 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Doh! Sorry. Have corrected the link.
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January 21st, 2008 at 12:34 am
Talking of institutional psychiatry, Gordon Brown has “decided” that airport-style metal detectors can now be used in schools to scan the customers for knives.
Dear, oh, dear. This is an initiative that will only encourage initiative. Hasn’t he heard of prisons or The Great Escape?
Churchill talked of depression as the black dog. Maybe Gordon Brown is the elephant in the room, not that nitwit with the knife at Sacred Heart.
Still, Muntari’s cracking, fabulous goal has ensured an excellent start to the African Nation’s Cup.
Keegan is a 0-0 specialist. Keegan out.
Mainly, though, I want to praise Sunshine House, the new children’s health centre on the Peckham Road near the Town Hall. The sunny colouring of the exterior plus the sky blue bit at the top that colours the real sky whatever’s happening up there all reinforce that sanest of sayings. “Always be happy.”
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January 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
The Grove was busy for lunch yesterday They ovbiously weren’t expecting that level of trade but the two girls on duty coped admirably.
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January 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
There are several elephants in the room these days, in herds just as in the wild. I hope we are on the ground floor, hold-yer-nose voters.
One of them is Northern Rock.
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January 21st, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Spread a little subshine and happiness:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/2106539240/
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January 21st, 2008 at 4:53 pm
subshine. Argghhh
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January 21st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Sorry Dagmar, but I must take issue with the last point of your no. 62 - assuming, of course, I’m thinking about the same place.
If it’s the blue-and-black behemoth on the corner of St Giles Road, it has but one thing in its favour: partially blocking the even uglier new office/residential block directly behind.
I know cursing modern architecture is a practice as old as assuming we’re all going to hell in the proverbial, criminal-powered handcart, but I can foresee no possible turnaround in public taste which could render that Lego brutalist, mock health-Stalin carbuncle aesthetically pleasing.
Does anyone know the architect responsible? Can they be soundly beaten with a stick?
Since that place opened, the far edge of the St Giles health centre - where the fleet of mini NHS Vauxhalls used to sit - has been boarded up. Anyone know if there are plans for it, other than a slow decline into crumbling neglect?
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January 21st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I’m with you PeteW. That building is awful. The only saving graces are:
* The name “Sunshine House”; and
* That it’s purpose is to help children - who can argue with that.
A lot of the regeneration projects around kennington/camberwell/peckham are very, very badly designed and look very cheap. North peckham estate is a prime example.
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January 21st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
To be fair, many of the new buildings in London are ruff… all steel and glass. What once looked modern is now looks lazy and slack. Cliched even.
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January 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Here’s what I saw Sunday, walking along Peckham Road at 9:30am ish with the kids…
A guy camping in a phone box on his last can of stella (3 empties on the floor), looked like he’d pissed himself
Two junkie skanks at the bus stop talking about how they’re out of methadone and how they’d try and get some more (no actual solution was specified)
So I was thinking WTF?
But as the day wore on, the normal people came out and everything seemed cool again.
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January 21st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
D-MAN and PeteW, to paraphrase Churchill, “first we make the buildings, then they, er, we make a bundle out of putting people in them without a choice in where they go”.
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January 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Has any one else come across lots of inert but alive ladybirds in their house recently? I keep finding them and can’t work out why they are here. I thought they would be dead in winter. Does anyone think they could be munching their way through my floor joists?.
I have guessed they are the new introduced variety (harlequins) that are taking over and wiping out our own ladybirds they have voracious appetites and eat lots of other insects but why are they in my house?
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January 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Mark… just looked at your photo of Sunshine House. Thanks for posting. Reading the comments a lot of people seem to like it. Fair ‘enuff.
I just don’t see how slapping some yellow and blue plastic on really helps. Like polishing a turd.
Council planners, architects, and decision makers, are a strange bunch. They should’ve let some art students, or people with a feel for the area and its history have a go at it.
However, it’s got to be good that money is getting spent around here. The more the better.
Anyone know what’s happening with that development at the end of Southampton Way on Peckham road? It looks like they may keep the original façade, which would be excellent. The face-lift of Oliver Goldsmith’s opposite is cool too.
Talking of development, work seems to be started on that lot on Camberwell Grove… I’m in favor of some expensive, private development as that brings more money to the area and mixes the place up a bit. That’s good for us all.
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January 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Re: D-MAN and PeteW, to paraphrase Churchill, “first we make the buildings, then they, er, we make a bundle out of putting people in them without a choice in where they go”.
Reg, you should see that place they built for student nurses down in Peckham opposite the bus station. Unbelievable.
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January 21st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
From the top of Shenley Road and you’ll see blue sky on a grey day. This is the big band of sky-blue finishing on the top of the recently completed Sunshine House. This is New Blair architecture - the sky is blue. It’s nice. This is choice.
Now that the sky is increasingly shite brown, so to speak, this old New Labour pale Blue now looks quite good.
It’s better work, too, than the dull, repetitive neoclassical architecture from the Shire Conservative days, the Eighties and most of the Nineties, the sort of pompous stuff that the romantic neo-fascist Prince Charles likes. Perhaps his son will be the next king and take up bicycling like Danish or Dutch royals - if they knows what’s good for ‘em, this is what will happen.
Vauxhall Cross flats, St George’s flagship, is an absolute abomination that boasts domination. Soon, as is ever the way with such things, a small gust of wind will blow it away like a crisp packet.
The people who work in Sunshine House could tell us what it’s really like, to work in. As a place to visit as a parent or child, it looks good.
The colour detailing on Sunshine House is actually quite witty - children’s seaside colours, sand yellow, sea blue and sky blue.
It’s a good reminder that childhood is not just a good time - or should be - it is the only time.
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January 21st, 2008 at 11:43 pm
There was a stray “and” in me first sentence. I am so tired. The baby swim time today at Peckham Pulse at 1pm for an hour was brilliant, like the dawn of time and the same price as a pint of strong drink.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
I’m also a fan of Sunshine House. It may not be the prettiest building, but it is fun. I also have a bias towards brick rather than the metal, glass and plastic of modern development. I find Peckham Library somewhat over-rated
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January 22nd, 2008 at 10:46 am
I like the library. Great views from inside too.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am
On Peckham Library, it might be a little over-rated, but I still like it… and it is public access, with great views.
It’s also very well used by all kinds of people.
I was discussing Sunshine House with an architect friend involved in with lots of projects in Southwark… and she really likes it… a question of taste, I guess. I think you’re all blinded by its newness and shiny plastic bits
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January 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Dagmar, we often take the kids swimming there. Great isn’t it.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Very warm pool.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Re: 75 Dagmar have you seen that St George are advertising studio flats in that development in Vauxhall for £399,000
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January 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Flats at Vauxhall also available on an ‘affordable’ shared ownership basis for the poor people who only have salaries of around £30,000 - http://www.nottinghillhousing.org.uk/propertydetail.aspx?id_Content=1101
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January 22nd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Mumu - is there another salary range option where you actually get paid to live there?
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January 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Well its the glamour of the place that draws people in - apparently John Major, Chelsea Clinton and a host of other famous people including err Lee from Blue live in the development.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Really excited about Mary Datchelor development now.
I reckon it will be £300k for 1 bed, £400k for two bed and the 4 bed town houses will be £950k.
£50k might get you an underground parking space.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Hannah, m’dear [post No.82], I put myself on the St Datchelor mailing list right away on a Sunday and their sales representative rang me two hours later, poor soul. I’d say she is programmed to hot-respond (I just coined that phrase) to every prospect right away instead of having a life.
You’re right, though, Alan, it will bring in the free-spending folk we need to bring the area up. We should welcome them.
Talking of hanging out in charity shops, the one on Denmark Hill by far plays the best music. Most charity shops play what I would coin as “charity shop rock” i.e. compilations from the 60s and early 70s, stuff the shop ladies like. Rod Stewart at its raciest.
Funnily enough, the Somerfield has just started playing similar charity shop rock. I heard the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” today as I was queuing at the till with a pretty 16-year-old behind me with her baby in a buggy, neither looking as though they wanted to be there.
I’d say they should all play the Cream Anthems 1997 compilation, then their customers would buy anything and everything.
Like the warm baby pool at the Pulse. I was astonished! Everyone in it becomes slowly and helplessly loved up! I was not in the slightest surprised that all us mummies there had been knocked up! It really was the Original Sea of Love, but with highly developed, gorgeous, lovely mammals and their young instead of nervous, new-to-it, rhythmless single-celled creatures!
Phew!
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January 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
30,000 per year is peanuts! Surely a household of two earn more than that. Loads more. Am I out of touch?
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January 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
It’s £30,000 for a single applicant, not a household. The average male would qualify, not the average female.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1438
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January 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Rather depends which side of the Green you’re on, JohnnyM. Do you ever travel north?
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 am
Johnny M you’re way out of touch as far as my experience goes. But then I don’t have a life, only a pub.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 am
Doe anyone know what a Liverpool Chicken is?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/2212536621/
If we can find out I think Ringo Starr might like to take one up to the City of Culture.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 am
Bit like Peking Duck, served on bricks. Boris was not wrong:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4372230.stm
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January 23rd, 2008 at 9:08 am
I’d have thought it was obvious. It’s locally sourced organic chicken.
I think the ‘hooked on grief’ accusation is less innappropriate in reference to mourning the death of a chicken foetus than in reference to the decapitation of Ken Bigley.
Boris is pretty funny but his diplomacy skills certainly undermine is application for Mayoral duties.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
Peter -
I also have a preference for buildings which use brick - I regarding the house brick as the most humane of all building materials…
Although I don’t like the cheap looking bricks used on Sunshine House…Would it really have been that much more expensive to have used some old red stock bricks instead? It just looks wrong to me
But again, some of the modern day,red and yellow stock bricks lok really cheap and nasty and will never age as magnificently as the old L.C.C social housing which surrounds Sunshine House for example…
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January 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
“Merseyside Police told the community on Monday to “stop grieving, it’s only a chicken”.
*belly laugh* I love it. On the other hand it’s easy to make such a foetal mistake:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2304/2214281814_6897e45280.jpg
The human genome is like an evolutionary Russian Doll containing clear evidence of all our antecedents that make us what we are - all the organisms that make us what we are are in there - they range from yeasts, bacteria, viruses so, of course, fish, chickens and chimps.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 am
Incidentally a Liverpool Chicken, according to the people who work at Wing Tai,is a VERY OLD chicken. “Don’t know why old chicken always been called Liverpool”.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 am
JohnnyM - a bit of reality - I think the average income in Britain in around £24,000 - and that would be by no means consider low income even in London.
Without giving too much away as a graduate in my late 20’s doing quite a skilled job i do not earn enought to quailfy for the “low income” flats in Vauxhall
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January 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
Me neither Hannah.
Although maybe a few more successes at the Bear’s quiz will up my income enough to qualify.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Fair enough. Then I suspect you should buy in Camberwell. Or Norwood. But I reckon most people on this board have a household income of 30K or more.
I don’t believe we should beat ourselves up because we believe everyone has a right to earn enough to buy a luxury flat by the river. My partner and I moved to Camberwell for a reason. We’ll move up the ladder as and when. Suggesting all of London should be equally affordable to everyone may be the political slant of this board, but it would end up killing the economy for all of us. Shame the City bonuses won’t be huge this year. They could’ve helped St George Camberwell spur on the SE5 economy and help with the devestating tax shortfall down at Southwark Town Hall. Now all hope for public spend on Camberwell is gone. They can’t even afford to start on Aylesbury due to a tax shortfall. You think they’ll magic up some funds for Camberwell??
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January 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Even Urban Dictionary doesn’t have a definition.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
I thoguth we were talking about single income here not household income? (well as a single person that is one and the same for me!!)
However i certainly do not think i am entitled to a luxury falt on the river (who’d want to live opposite Vauxhall bus station anyway!) on my income i cannot even afford to buy in Camberwell!! Well correction i can afford a studio or one bedroom on Camberwell New Road if i put all my savings in a house and take out a completely unaffordable mortgage at something like 6 times my salary, however i don’t fancy being terrified everytime the interest rates go up or mt job looks threatened so i’ll bow out of the “housing miracle” for now thanks!
Also be careful what you wish for with the St George development. Being a bit of a Middle Class Guardian reading ponce myself i have absolutely no problem with higher income people moving to Camberwell - we should welcome all comers. However those type of developments tend not to attect the well heeled young couples of the ads but more like buy to let land lords, property investment consortia - who often leave the places empty, parents buying an investment for the spoilt student off spring to party in and part time londoners looking for a little place to stay a few nights when they are in the “city”
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January 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
It’s single income, not household:
“As a single applicant you must be earning a minimum salary of £30,000 or £34,000 as a joint applicant to purchase a 25% share in the cheapest flat.”
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Odd how there seems little difference between the sums for single and joint applicants!
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
JohnnyM, some of London’s regeneration projects remind me a bit of the Tammany Ring and New York’s interminable City Hall build in the 19th Century. Good to keep an eye out.
I am interested in your idea that Camberwell needs funding.
1. What would you spend public funds on?
2. Does Lordship Lane have greater local spending power than Camberwell New Road or Camberwell Church Street?
3. Is there another way to develop the SE5 economy other than, or in addition to, more St George-style developments?
4. By the SE5 economy, do you really mean the rate of house price growth or are you also talking about increased concentration of wealth earned and spent locally?
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
My friend met a guy through Guardian Soulmates who happened to be very rich and had a 2 bed apartement in St Georges at Vauxhall worth a ridiculous amount of money but it was a very pokey 2 bed flat cheaply made it did have a huge deck over looking the river which has fantastic views.
When they got married she insisted he sold it becuase it was so “naff” now they have a 14 bed Chateau in France.
The quality of St Georges build is not great if you go there the public areas are not great quality it feels like a 80’s shopping centre. That development is not occupied for the same reasons Hannah says at 102 property investment companies keeping them empty. The place has something like 50% occupancy and that is on the bus station side which is not quite so glamourous. So Mary Datchelor development may not bring the riches and gentifrication that some think.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
@103 Interestingly (well interesting for some people at least) there was question in Parliament on Monday about average incomes in London (see http://tinyurl.com/38a7l2) - the answer revealed that the average household income in Southwark borough is £510 a week (around £26,500 per year) before housing costs according to the latest government figures. This is one of the lower figures for inner London boroughs, it is also an average for the whole borough so includes people in the more prosperous areas.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
GCSE Maths question - is that Mean or Median income?
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January 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Therein lies your answers. For all the middle class frap on this board, the overwhelming number of our neighbours struggle to get by. So dreams of a Lordship Lane coming here are a bit misplaced.
Best advice? Get cracking on the Guardian personal ads.
And apologies Peter. Didn’t realise your household income didn’t reach 34K. My bad.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Figures are median and they are average household income and covers everyone - you can bet that most of the bus drivers, nurses, shopkeepers, minicab drivers, hospital cleaners in Camberwell would not have incomes at that level.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
if you are in Lambeth side of Camberwell you are £2,000 richer which would make an average of £27,550 for the area.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
On average maybe but the Lambeth bit of Camberwell I believe falls in two of the most deprived wards in Lambeth - Vassall and Coldharbour - so its unlikely that the average incomes will match the borough average. Lambeth’s rich people all live in places like Clapham, Streatham and Kennington
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January 23rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
So are we all going to the SE5 Forum metting tonight?
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January 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I’d forgotten how tedious Mr M could be. You think you’re a straight-talking realist, pricking the self-rightous collective bubble of this blog. I think you’re predictable, one track and deeply repetitive. Roll on the moment you and your partner move ‘up the ladder’ to whichever crime free, sqeaky clean promised land you hanker after.
But each to their own, horses for courses etc etc.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
@95 eusebiovic. It’s a long time since I was in the brick game but Sunshine is made out of Staffordshire Blues, I think; they are some of the hardest, durable, high temperature fired - and most expensive - bricks available anywhere.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I live next to Sunshine House and I think it looks decent. The colourful touches are pleasingly whimsical and contrast nicely with black brick. It’s modernist, but certainly not brutalist - the windows are way too large for that. Unlike the red brick building behind it which has no redeeming features whatsoever.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
http://www.ibstock.com/products-staffordshire-slate-blue-smooth-solid.asp
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January 23rd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
@100 JohnnyM
If the community groups in Camberwell could agree on anything and work together they would be able to lever in considerable funds for SE5. They don’t often see eye to eye on detail though.
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January 24th, 2008 at 12:18 am
The SE5 Forum agm went well tonight. I like the notion of “Smooth Solid” as in the Staffordshite Blue brick context (genuine typo as it happens).
Peter Gasston got a special mention for the volunteer work he’s done for the Forum.
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January 24th, 2008 at 12:59 am
He is a brick.
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January 24th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Herne Hill Forum “Bridging the gap between Lambeth and Southwark”
Thursday 7th February 2008 - 7pm Herne Hill Baptist Church, 30 Half Moon Lane SE24 9HU
http://www.hernehillforum.blogspot.com
hernehillforum@btinternet.com
Chair: Giles Gibson
Vice Chair: David Cianfarini
Secretary: Paul Reynolds
I shall be attending this meeting and I am thinking of putting forward the suggestion that perhaps it might be a good idea to collaborate with SE5Forum on many of the issues that we share in common.
I think the issues they worry about are much the same as in SE5…
Well funded transport links
Improved traffic management
Better street environment through flora/landscaping
Encoraging innovative business enterprise
Less anti-social drinking outlets/establishments
I think it would be an excellent idea to pursue the possibility of collaborating, I think it is something which the SE5Forum needs - especially bringing together reprsentatives from Lambeth and Southwark councils in the same room (as they are doing), which helps to co-ordinate any plans or initiatives which all the community groups in the local area decide upon.
Apologies for not being at meeting yesterday (again) - I work until 9.00pm on most weeknights, but hopefully not for much longer…which will be great for me personally, then perhaps I can get my teeth into something which interests me!
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January 24th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
mark - @117
still prefer the Old Red Staffordshire Northern Bricks - The ones that St.Pancras and much of Manchester and the north is full of them…there is just an warm, earthy quality about them that I always like to see…
Black Bricks? - I just don’t like them there is an estate on the Black Prince Road in Kennington made from black brick stocks and it just looks depressing, like a flippin’ gulag or something…
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January 24th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Do you mean the very red bricks that you find in the Midlands, Eusebiovic, that hardly ever weather? The good thing about the standard London Brick Company bricks is that they weather to different hues of red, a bit like bloggers here, really.
I wonder if the Sunshine House bricks are the same as the old, dark grey impervious bricks. I doubt it. They were very expensive. If you’d ‘ad one row at ground level on yer ‘ouse, you were posh.
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January 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Dagmar - Yes, but those Midlands bricks just have a better quality about them, the modern day bricks try to look the same as the old ones but just end up looking look cheap and very wrong…
There must be something in the technique of how bricks used to be made that just makes them look better - The Old Yellow London Brick for example is far better than it’s cheap,chalky looking modern counterpart
By the way if you were really wealthy in Georgian/Victorian times you could get some limestone bricks, they have an off- white appearance…there are still a handful of streets in Kennington with houses made out of them - they look totally unique, even now
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May 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Can anyone help? I’m from the bottom of Southwark borough (SE26 no less), and at Sunshine House for a course on Tuesday.
I don’t know Peckham at all, but understand parking round there is a bit difficult. Have a taxi coming to pick me up - any suggestions where I should get it to wait for me? Think Sunshine House is on a red route…
Sorry such a trivial question, but any advice very gratefully received…
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May 4th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Sunshine House is a big shiny new set-up which we are very proud of here -they themselves are your best bet to ask. This must happen all the time, that people need to get picked up or park there or whatever. Ring them up first thing Tuesday and I’m sure you will get a shiny happy answer! They probably have sunshine pre-put in their tea!
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