Category: Places

Life through a lens

I’m back from my holiday in Mega City One. Many thanks to Mumu for holding the fort in my absence and thanks, as ever, to everyone who reads and everyone who comments.

Back to find that little has changed, then. As my taxi swept down the New Road I noticed the banners hung outside the now-defunct Old Dispensary; once a vibrant, regal purple with gold detail, they are now weather-beaten and dull, almost-brown and raggedly fluttering.

Next came the building which stands at the very epicentre of our area, at the junction of the four principal roads and at the corner of the Green for which we are most known: the public toilet. Shit-smeared and derelict, it no longer works even for its secondary purpose, a shooting gallery for heroin. So disgusting that even the addicts don’t want it.

Further along to the Church Street Hotel, for which many hold high hopes; still not open, three months past target. One small spark of hope still exists to be kindled, however, as there was a man there painting the front door.

Further still and across the road, the repainted Cube, changed from its original burnt ember to a kind of septic green, with bruise-green detail and door and window frames still in burnt ember. Is that finished? One would hope not, yet certainty eludes us.

Everywhere we look are visual metaphors.

Surrounding area

As I mentioned in a previous post the Western side of Camberwell is a moveable feature with what some call Camberwell, others argue is Brixton, Oval, Herne Hill, Putney or wherever (or on reflection maybe not Putney but you get my drift). I guess Brixton has more street-cred and greater recognition than Camberwell.

The Urban75 website is an excellent source of information, reviews, discussion and much much else for all things Brixton (and surrounding area).

Occasionally Urban 75 features reports from Camberwell such as the excellent feature on the lost pubs of the area which documents several of the ‘characterful’ and rather intimidating pubs of Coldharbour Lane that I remember cycling by when I first lived in Brixton in 1998.

Recently it featured Ruskin Park and I was intrigued by another report that they carried on the ‘Camberwell Submarine’ which is an architectural feature I have passed on several occasions and wondered what it was. It is interesting that they consider Akerman Road, SW9 to be in Camberwell.

Another site I have recently discovered is the Lambeth Landmark which features old photos from Lambeth’s archives — by selecting Brixton North or Loughborough Junction from the places menu you can access several from the SE5 Camberwell area.

Edgy, gritty, urban and edgy

If I may take a break from my usual homophobic, racist and scatological posts for a moment…

Today’s Evening Standard ‘Homes & Property’ supplement has an article on Camberwell — or a CAMBERWELL SPECIAL, as the posters outside Denmark Hill put it.

The emphasis seems to be on people who want to invest in the area, rather than live in it; consistently referred to as ‘edgy’, the focus is on the relatively cheap prices of Georgian housing stock in the area; I say relatively, because the properties listed go for between £435,000 and £899,950.

The artistic side is played up, with mentions of the South London and GX Galleries, and the middle-class aspect is brought firmly to the fore. There are passing mentions of street crime and population diversity, but this is aimed solely for Standard readers — and you can’t really blame them for knowing their market.

No references to being under-invested and overlooked by the Council, unfortunately; and I’d take issue with Burgess Park being described as ‘leafy’. Otherwise, about what I’d have expected.

Saturday night at the Golden Grill

On Saturday night we took a stroll through Camberwell Green in all it’s post-midnight glory.

We’d been out in Waterloo to see some friends off on a long trip; drinks were at the Arch One Bar & Grill, a cavernous space dominated by an enormous TV screen. Table service from a charming waitress, Caipirinhas £7 each. £7! For rum, lime and sugar! I didn’t have one, I just noticed the price.

1.30am and we were walking through the Green in pursuit of a late night treat: a chicken kebab from the Golden Grill. They’ve been open since 1979 and are very proud of it, displaying the date on their blue uniforms. I think they show fantastic patience to cope with the demands of their core clientele, the drinkers of the Silver Buckle next door.

Kebab in hand, we stopped at one of the multitude of off-licences further down Camberwell Church Street for a drink worthy of accompanying the food. One of the owners, an elderly Asian man, was laughingly fending off the agressive, insistent statements of a customer who was claiming he had seen the man’s wife dancing naked.

Back on the road to home, past the Funky Munky which was it’s usual twitchy, noisy self, we had to quickly cross over to avoid a group of five men who were rolling around on the floor and trading punches. After we’d skirted them I looked back and they were laughing together, with their arms around each other as they headed Buckle-wards.

We got home and opened our meals; the ‘small’ kebab could have fed the 5,000, it was so big. That’s why the Golden Grill have been around since 1979.

The next morning I went to buy some orange juice and I was confronted with this:

You have been warned

I think it’s a little unfair.

Keep the bloody noise down

Memo to pub owners: When you have a pub full of punters eating or having a chat at 5.30pm on a Sunday, there’s no reason at all to turn the music up so loud that people sitting a foot away from each other have to shout to be heard — not even if one drunk bloke asks you to because “this is a wicked song”.

So after we were driven out of the Castle, we went for a quiet pint at the Dark Horse on the way home. Or, not so quiet; after having bought a pint and sat down, the evening’s entertainment started setting up their sound system right next to our table.

Finishing up, we thought about going for some fish and chips from the Flying Fish; unfortunately, despite having ‘Open 7 days 11am-10.30pm’ on the door, they were shut.

It was not a successful Sunday.

On the positive side, we did get some very nice bread from Paul’s Continental Olive Shop on Saturday; filled with olives, tomato and herbs. But a quick question: why is the ‘S’ in ‘Shop’ on their sign drawn as a snake?

In response to a comment from Dagmar, I’m also intrigued by the Peckham Lodge; it’s a big, smart building and I’d like to know more about it. Was it ever a successful hotel? Is it now, as I suspect, a bail/asylum hotel? Or am I doing it a grave disservice? This page says it “specialises in catering for long stay guests”; it also says “Peckham is a vibrant creative hotspot and has recently become incredibly fashionable amongst Londoners”.