Christmas events around Camberwell

Christmas events in Camberwell in the next few days (10 — 17 Dec 2010)

(With apologies to Peter for posting so soon after his magnificent post — I have been planning this for several days!)

There are various Christmas events in and around Camberwell in the next few days which I thought worth highlighting:

(Not strictly in Camberwell I know but nearby) On Friday 10 December 2010, 7:30pm, there is a carol concert including performances of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and Vaughan Williams’ Withers Carol in aid of the Robes homeless shelter at St John the Divine Church, Vassall Road, Kennington, SW9 — more information on the Robes website

On Friday 10 (evening), Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 (12–5pm) December 2010 Clockwork Studios in Southwell Road are holding open days and studio sales — more information on the Studios’ website

Also on Friday 10 (evening preview), Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 (10am-6pm) Empress Mews Studios just off Kenbury Street are holding an art, giftware, craft and design sale — more information on the Kennington blog

On Saturday 11 December 2010 10am onwards there is a Christmas farmers and crafts market with arts and crafts and food stalls together with face painting, choirs and other activities. More details on the Southwark website (at time of writing its a bit vague — there are no location details for example!) — Peoples Republic of Southwark is more definite — it on Camberwell Green

On Sunday 12 December 2010 in Myatt’s Fields Park there is a Christmas market and carol singing — market 2pm onwards, carols from 4 — more information on local Vassall Ward website

On Monday 13 December 2010 at the South London Gallery there is the Camberwell Society Christmas Party, 7:30pm onwards for members — join on the door. Not much information online — see the Society website or the numerous posters dotted around Camberwell

On Friday 17 Decemember 2010 there is candlelit carol singing accompanied by mulled wine, mince pies and chestnuts and short concert by the Pop up Choir 7pm onwards at the Secret Garden on the D’Eynsford estate — see Secret Garden blog for location

If you know of any other Camberwell Christmas events post below!

119 thoughts on “Christmas events around Camberwell”

  1. The Empress Mews studios, SE5 9BT is having a private view on Friday and studio sale Saturday and Sunday 10–6 (four lovely studios selling paintings, china, textiles, wallpaper, and homeware. We met a lovely couple who run one of the East London design companies, Mini Moderns, at a design fair — recommended!)

  2. On Friday 17th December at 7pm the Secret Garden is having an evening of candlelit Carol singing accompanied by mulled wine, mince pies and chestnuts.

    There will be a short concert by the Pop Up Choir (www.popupchoir.co.uk), followed by Carols.

    The Secret Garden is on the D’Enysford estate. See link for directions: http://deynsfordsecretgarden.blogspot.com

    Any money raised from the sale of minced pies will go to help the garden buy more seeds for next year.

  3. A note that Burgess Park plans are finally in for approval. I have been both encouraged by the wonderful effort by the Friends of Burgess Park in getting something special, and baffled by the unhelpful, combative stance of the Burgess Park Action Group (basically, in my opinion, a small chorus of people bent on opposing everything). It seems in Camberwell, we are often our own worst enemy. But the Friends Group, much like the Baths Group, has stayed positive, stayed the course and we are seeing real change. Well done to them and shame on those who never saw an opportunity as nothing more than a chance to protest.

  4. More over t’junction end of camberwell — clockwork studios are having open studio days on

    Friday 10 December: 6.00 — 9.00pm
    Saturday 11 December: 12.00 — 5.00pm
    Sunday 12 December: 12.00 — 5.00pm

    at

    38 Southwell Road
    London SE5 9PG

  5. Thanks for the contributions — I have incorporated them into the text (well not the S&D new years details — that can wait for the New Year blogpost) — the pleasures of crowd sourcing!

  6. Police got thuggy in town tonight, like the miners’ strike, doing the Conservatives’ dirty work, busting up citizens.

    That peaceful anti-second-Iraq war protest was the biggest ever in Britain, but had mild headlines and no graphic images like paint on Prince Charles’s car. He does not hold British state schools, teachers or children in good regard, it must be remembered.

    Lyndhurst Primary Winter Fair brought in £4,200, we are told today. A very practically creative, retail-and-festival-aware bunch of Camberwell parents do a lot to get that result.

    The money goes towards trips out for the kids — London Zoo and the like. Two coaches for that costs £700.

    Some of the money raised may go towards providing window blinds for the school so the kids and teachers don’t get boiled in the summer.

    This is how things are. Trips out and window blinds do not get provided for by the government. Isn’t that incredible?

    ALL after-school care for children in Southwark whose parents are working beyond school hours — the very people propping up the economy on minimal wages — is being cut from 2012.

    People currently aged 1 in our parish are paying for the wealth crash and to bail out the Blair/Cameron, institutional, natural, tribal antipathy towards state children.

    As an “icon”, Charles and Camilla sure looked pathetic in their cocoon.

  7. Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has condemned the “thugs” who carried out the attack. He said the royals’ protection officers showed “enormous restraint”.

    I think the thugs have shown enormous restraint in putting up with a medieval hereditary monarchy for hundreds of years.

    When I see pictures on TV of thugs waving their sticks, shouting aggressively and scaring passers-by with their actions, they usually seem to be dressed as Met Officers.

  8. If we don’t put up a fight — They will take it all

    The clock is being turned back to the exact point before modern social justice started (1865, more or less)

    The last 145 years of death, destruction,facism & genocide have been a result of the determination of the bourgeoise supremacy to make the masses pay for that huge kick in the balls that derailed their highly lucrative gravy train and ensure we regress back to that point in time.

    And they are in the home straight — the light at the end of the tunnel is now very much within sight.

    What is most concerning is that the perpetrators are even more cynical & extreme than the famous dictators which used to provide a very public focal point for their aggression.

    (Hitler,Stalin,Franco,Mussolini etc)

    Take your pick!

    Now we have political leaders who show great democracy and say all the right words and appear to be reasonable human beings — but the only thing they have the power to change is their underpants.

    It’s not even about the invented class system anymore

    64% of the population will always believe what they are told by the government and media

    35% don’t know the answer to everything but are a hell of a lot more aware than is appreciated

    These percentages cut across all classes (Working,Middle and Upper)

    The 1% of the anonymous bourgeoise supremacy control the minds of the 64%

    That is all they need to do — Simple

    We are living in some very dark times, indeed 🙁

    The pressing need to rise up is all we’ve got left!

  9. re police: they will behave abysmally regardless of which party is in government (see also: jean charles de menezes, ian tomlinson, SOCPA, climate camp searches where crayons are weapons of mass…distraction?!)
    one good thing that happened yesterday was that the protest could not be ignored any more and went national, channel 4, bbc, guardian, etc covered it live. some were even reporting the police brutality as it was unravelling.
    as someone who’d lived in other countries & experienced other protests and other propagandas, hearing official government/police comments and/or party political blamegames is a major yawn as it’s just not news — in yugoslavia, we had ‘the forces of evil and darkness’ protesting against ‘the good president’ (milosevic) and of course everyone who did not agree was foreign and an enemy.

  10. Can’t stand the po-lice. However, it’s obvious that many of these protestors are hoody kids off the nearby estates looking to run amok.

    It’s terrible though, landing young people with that much debt. Really bad.

    Just another example of the intergenerational screwover that’s going on.

    I can see the students’ anger, but they really need to ask their own lecturers about their very generous pay and pensions. Lots of the fees go there.

    All these pretend universities Liebour created don’t help much either. Something’s got to give.

    And I could’ve done parts of my degree in half the time, no problem.

  11. Education is most important peacetime government responsibility of all however the way it is paid for needs to change. It cannot be paid for by ALL students and it cannot be universally free as millions exploit the system and don’t value their education pissing it up the wall. At present so many students go to university just to get a ‘degree’ they study a popular subject say Geography and then come out and get a job in the city earning big bucks. Their degree has been paid for by many people who will earn much less than them.

    A fair system means rewarding students who go into the vocation which the country paid for them to study – giving back to society. Engineering graduates that go into engineering jobs don’t pay fees and those going into more lucrative careers such as finance do – its as simple as that. At present thousands of our best and brightest from Oxbridge are lured away from poor paying research or education proffesions to jobs in the city.

    With a ‘fair’ system you can tailor the degrees on offer giving the graduates the country needs. Those that want to go into more lucrative careers are free to do so but they must then be prepared to pay for their education.

    Maybe there is a floor in this plan – but it seems to make sense to me.

    As for the police It must be a hellish tough job and like the protesters there will be good and bad cops but it will always be the dark sadistic ones that give the good caring ones a bad name however I strongly believe they should be obliged to be as diverse as the community they are responsible for.

  12. At least there is an iconic photograph now, or ironic photograph. Image, that’s it. Icon. Picture. Pic. Piccie. Since our opposition politicians now speak policy-wonk gibberish, we will have to do with pix.

    Until we have a leader.

    Who can say.

    That nevah.

    In the field of human concrete.

    Has such muck.

    Been throwed.

    To such poo.

    By so brainy.

    Or something like that.

    Car accidents seem to have a critical role in national changes of mood in recent years.

  13. Not a dry eye in the house at the Villa Nursery nativity play today. Some star performances. When Mary dropped her baby, an real baby in the audience cried out. Wicked! Excellent piano accompaniment by Mrs Vinyl.

    When there is so much tragedy in the world, especially on Coronation Street… it’s nice that… Cliff Richard… John Cage, Gary Glitter, Shane McGowan and the Priests.… tinsel…

  14. Just delved a bit behind the above Camberwell article. It’s from ‘past tense’ an assemblage of radical history items largely about London. The description heading the article is thus:

    • Rare Doings at Camberwell: radicals, subversion and social control: a short tour through Camberwell’s underground history. A wild ramble through London SE5’s murky past, featuring a dubious cast of rowdy fairgoers, proletarian artists, rioting chartists, squatters, feminist authors, mad folk, anti-fascists… and the occasional transexual trotskyist housing officer.

    Seems like a description of here and now.

  15. If anyone knows a Sarah Jane Harding who ate in Carravagios last evening at about nine thru ten and had her purse stolen, please tell her it has been handed into Walworth Road Police Station this morning.

    There is some very valuable stuff in it.

  16. I think it may be mine. What’s in it? One of my noms de plume de ma tante is John Wesley Harding.

    The Camberwell Society is having a do on Monday evening at the South London Gallery — you can join at a discount on the door.

    The Camberwell Society is great, incredibly gentle and wise but with a great punch when it wants to throw it to protect Camberwell.

  17. Camberwell Christmas will not be complete without
    ‘A Camberwell Carol’, play at the Blue Elephant Theatre, brought to you by the Wyndham & Comber Community Play, on for two nights only, 20th and 21st December, 7pm start. Tickets are on sale now at the Blue Elephant Theatre, £4 adults, £2 young people, free for under-5s

  18. One of the Russians was coming online just as I deleted his account. I’m sure the two actions were unrelated.

    Camberwell Society: The Society’s objectives, as defined by our constitution, are: to stimulate public interest in Camberwell, to promote high standards of planning and architecture in Camberwell, and to secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest in Camberwell.

    And it’s been going since 1970?

    Huh?

    Definitely going to SLG tomorrow night though, my family membership lapsed a couple of years ago when I was really broke.

  19. Hi Mark,

    Why are you trolling about the Camberwell Society again.

    SE5 Forum is great but so is the Camberwell Society — they do good things — I don’t understand your dislike? — I know you wish they would do more and you think they just look after a certain ‘patch’ (i disagree) but these are just short comings not a reason for turning people against them.

    I should prevent myself from rising to the negative posts but it is sad when the movers and shakers in Camberwell slag each other off especially when in the end we want the same thing — a better place to live and work.

    Nick

  20. Nick. It’s not off topic; it’s pertinent. It’s not trolling. Posting the aims of the Society is just posting the aims of the Society. You consider this trolling — WHY? You could easily interpret posting the aims of the society as a promotion of its activities which, of course, is what I intended. Please do inspect the Society’s website and consider what it’s achieved and consider then what forty years of Camberwell Society has done for the area. And rejoice:

    http://www.camberwellsociety.org.uk/

  21. Mark, stop being dodgy.

    I think, like many people, that you feel that the Camberwell Society is a bit narrow in its remit and is only really concerned with the nicer, fluffier bits of Camberwell. I certainly do. If that’s your belief too then just say so.

    Nick, stop being so touchy. You are reacting like a Daily Express reader.

    The reality is that both Camberwell Society and SE5 Forum are able to do little that improves the lot of those of us that choose to live and work in Camberwell. It doesn’t mean that either group has the higher moral value, or is the true voice of the people or anything else really.

    Now kiss and make up please.

  22. What better reason can there to finally leave what has been said and done in the past behind and co-operate to make Camberwell a better place to live in the future — Especially if there is a chance to create a Community Development Trust?

    Would it be asking too much to make that a new year’s resolution for 2011?

    Come on Camberwell Society…if you finally make the effort to nudge a bit closer then everyone else will do the same in return…I’m not sure anybody else knows how to approach the CS — There is a definite degree of intimidation there…well founded or not

    Nick W — Any chance that you may fancy playing peace broker?

    😉

  23. Come along, Camberwell. Old Dodds just had a bit of the country-and-westerns: “It’s four in the morning and once more the dawning has woke up the wanting in me…”

    To post past 2am is always a dicey roll of the roulette wheel or a to-hell-with-it pull on the one-armed bandit of emotions. Chunck! chunck! chunck! Three maudlins!

    Me and Elton John are working on a musical about a jazz club in the crypt of a church — a basement where normally the bodies of posh people are hung out to dry — you open the cupboard doors down there and there they are grinning pretty jolly, hey!

    Anyway, the storyline goes that the jazz club — for the wild and free music of the slaves, directly below the house of the uptight Christians — is taken over after many years by a huge corporate corporation intent on selling product. What happens next?

    It is the first ever musical with pure jazz — fabulous tenor sax solos, Elton on piano.

    Old Sharon doesn’t know he’s composing the base tunes yet or is involved at all — I will just send him the lyrics bashed out on scraps of paper on an old typewriter. He’ll know what to do with them.

    What’s the word from the Camberwell Society do at the SLG?

    Mid 19th Century, the National Gallery was where working-class people went to see the classic art. Towards the end of the century, however, when places like Camberwell were being heavily built up and populated, the workers’ art education and training was being furthered by the new galleries like the Whitechapel and South London.

    The Camberwell Society is a jewel in our flat cap, like Dulwich Hamlet, the nearby Dulwich Picture Gallery, Lucas Gardens, the Town Hall, the Hermits Cave, Noddles City or the 99p shop.

  24. Did anyone make it down to the farmers’ market last weekend? It was a delight: great stalls, and mobbed with people of all sorts. A proper Camberwell representation. I really hope that this becomes a regular thing. Camberwellians seem ready for it!

  25. Missed it. But I am after some ethically produced and marketed Christmas presents. Handmade jewellery, organic cotton T‑Shirts…that kind of thing. Any ideas locally?

    The poundshop doesn’t count. You just know someone in China or Vietnam suffered plastic poisoning producing that junk.

  26. More farmers’ market days will be on, likely from March 2011, once a month. Possibly. It was good to see The Tiger busy on Saturday afternoon with a good mix of people.

    Camberwell Society’s Christmas party was good natured, good fun and in a great venue. They should aim to make next year’s do much bigger with a lot longer promoting in advance. Adam Woodward did a great job of organising it. Well done Adam. I didn’t see Nick W so let’s catch up somewhere else eh Nick? Oh and Jes couldn’t make it. Shame on you Jesabelle.

    You really should see in New Year’s Eve at The Sun and Doves if you’ve never done it before… This year will be the BEST! With South London Jazz Orchestra blowing and swinging in the New Year with Glen Miller classics to dance to if you’re In The Mood… a lot of family friendly fun, dancing with mulled wine, stollen and bubbly with Big Ben in the background.

  27. Oh God, so listen, Mark. Da Camberwell Society need to get real, right?

    Maybe they want a musical done about themselves composed by Elton John? He will do it for me. What’s the story, though?

    Got it.

    Camberwell Society hold their next do in the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

    The whole of Camberwell then gets bought by Russian oligarchs and gasilarchs or just in in for a larks.

    They pump millions — in gas alone — into Millwall, who are den ver new all-UK national team for the Qatar World Cup.

    No-one likes it. But the Russians don’t care.

  28. I like The Tiger — It’s the best new/old addition to Camberwell this year…

    It’s a lovely place to drop into after work…The food is simple and traditional pub grub done quite well — The building facade has been painted and the ceramic tiles tidied up too.

    See what happens when somebody goes out of their way to make an effort?

    Me like 😉

  29. Exactly, Euse. Normally after Camberwell Society meetings, many members used to go to the Hermits Cave. But a few of us mature ladies used to escape to the old Buckle and dance to the hi-life. There was no need for our husbands to know. They were too busy in court — one way or another!

  30. Yea sorry didn’t go to the CS christmas party. I was feeling rough and couldn’t afford the £8 — also not really my thing. Went to the Christmas farmers market on the green which I thought was great. Also went to the Open Studios at Clockwork Studios which was interesting. I would love to get to look in the tall wearhouse building next door. You can just see inside it from the train on the approach to Denmark Hill Station from the west.

  31. SE freezing. First the Russians buy football with their spare change, then they take over Camberwell. Still, a lot of Russians are really warm.

  32. The bin outside is frozed shut. Inside is warm. My laptop has had Vista reinstalled in error. This is annoying. This is Camberwell. Vista in all its glory. And it’s not 2am.

  33. Went to FM Mangal again a couple of nights ago. Excellent as always.

    Went to the Tiger last night. Very busy.

  34. I think Camberwell is quite run down and filled with charlatons, low lives and less decent people (I appreciate the decent residents folks whom try to make things better and end up getting put down by scumbags in the area from time-to-time). The area needs vamping up and a character change.Most people are miserable,negative and narrow-minded and some are trying get by positively!The Shops and transport are accessible but most people walking by, are filled with negativity! Especially that blabber mouth [[Redacted by Peter]] who can’t keep his trap shut!Instead of helping the Community he just spread vicious comments and untrue statements about people…by the way, I know Camberwell has a lot to offer but we have to work as a Community to make the area look better.We have a lot of history and we were once part of the county of Surrey and we use to be a provider of spring water in Camberwell Grove. The Well is blocked due to Industrialisation…we have talented art students from the Art College, Musicians and wildlife plus commerce…regeneration, should also start in Camberwell.

  35. @Voicer — I removed the name of someone from your comment as I thought it could be potentially libellous, and I won’t be responsible for that.

  36. Who was it? Pete, you’re such a tease!

    It’s a nice thought, Voicer, that we used to provide spring water. It would be great if there was a new bottling plant with profits going back into the community. Everyone round here would drink it. The pubs would sell nothing else!

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