Useful Information

• Hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, car hire
• Shops & other businesses
• Local transport
• Property for sale or to let
• Sources of information, help and advice

• Advice on living in Lambeth

• Parent/toddler Groups and other support for parents of young children

• Local Development Plans
• Community groups, Council websites, charities etc.
• General Election Results

Things to do

• Interesting Places and Things to do
• Free Events - Month by Month
• Things to do with Children
• Kennington Association Notice Board

Local News

• An excellent SE11 (Kennington) blog
• Kennington News
• Kennington Events Calendar
• Kennington Arts Calendar
• Kennington Community Forum
• Kennington Discussion Forum
• Email the Town Centre Team if you would like the monthly North Lambeth Info-bulletin.

You might also like to follow these links to detailed information about our neighbouring areas:-

• Along the South Bank to Tower Bridge
• Lambeth
• Other London web sites

History

The Vauxhall/Kennington area has a rich and fascinating history. If this is your first visit to this website, you might like to begin your tour by reading a summary of the area's history, including further links to more detailed information and maps. Or maybe you would just like to follow these links to learn how the area became:-

• the site of the first London Bridge,
• the site of the famous Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (see picture above) and therefore
• the place which gave its name to the Russian word for railway station,
• the birthplace of the earliest public museum in England,
• the host of the the first FA Cup Final and the original Ashes test match, both at the Oval,
• the birthplace of Charlie Chaplin,
• the home of the Lambeth Walk,
• a link in the Admiralty's optical telegraph
• the target for devastating bombing during the Second World War,
• and so the site of much post-war social housing, including the Aylesbury Estate,
• and subsequently caught up in the 2005 London suicide bombings, and
• the site of probably the last remaining Anderson air raid shelter in London.

History - Cont'd

Vauxhall was also the cradle of a number of important manufacturing companies, including

• Vauxhall Motors,
• Doulton Potteries,
• Buckingham's Vauxhall Glassworks, and
• Price's Patent Candles.

Prominent local buildings etc. include:

• Lambeth Palace,
• The Oval Cricket Ground,
• Kennington Park,
  • inc. its use for sports etc. over the years
• St George's Cathedral, and
• The Necropolis Railway, Tube lines and other Railways

If you want to research further, I recommend you browse:-

• Old Maps of the area
• The Vauxhall Society website which contains a wealth of detailed historical material
• The extensive Lambeth Archives Image Collection
• The Ideal Homes Website created by Greenwich University, Lambeth Council and others, which has historical information, lots of old photos etc. of South London through the ages - including numerous images of the Kennington/Vauxhall area
• The Collage Collection of prints from the Guildhall Library
• The detailed European Visual Archive
• Censuses from 1841 through to 1901 - using "Lambeth" as the place name, and
• a detailed history of Vauxhall provided by the Friends of Vauxhall Park.