Things to do in Vauxhall, Kennington & the Oval

Things to do in and around Vauxhall, Kennington & the Oval

This is a list of the principal local attractions, places of interest, and places of worship. You might also like to look at two separate webpages listing free events throughout the year and places to go, and places to eat, with children.

Vauxhall Park - pictured above - and Kennington Park (pictured below) are lovely throughout most of the year. Both have good playgrounds and Kennington Park has the bonus of an excellent cafe.

The photo on the left is one of a series of beautiful photos Kennington Park trees by local resident John Hoyland. Postcards of four seasonal photos taken by John are now on sale at the Cafe in the Park.

Principal Local Attractions and Places of Interest

The Imperial War Museum is a "must see", not least because it avoids glorifying war but examines war from many different perspectives.
The world's first Museum of Garden History is in the restored church of St Mary-at-Lambeth next to Lambeth Palace. It is a wonderful museum if you are interested in plants and gardens, not least because of its strong connections with the Tradescants who are buried in the churchyard .... as is Captain Bligh of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" who lived in Lambeth Road. Here is a picture of his grave:-
The excellent Vauxhall City Farm on Tyers St is open every day except Friday and Monday from 1030 - 1300 and 1400 - 1700.
There are two fringe theatres in the area.
- The White Bear Theatre Club at 138 Kennington Park Road - very near Kennington tube station - was voted "Best Fringe Venue" and "Best Up and Coming Theatre" in 2001. There are plays most evenings and tickets are excellent value at Ł8.00.
- And the Oval House Theatre hosts a wide range of plays, exhibitions and other events. It can be a good place to spot up and coming talent:- Pierce Brosnan began his career here.
There is a well established and lively gay scene around Vauxhall Cross. The best known venue is the Royal Vauxhall Tavern where numerous performers began their careers, including Lily Savage.
The best walk in London starts at Vauxhall Bridge and follows the south bank of the Thames to beyond Tower Bridge. The views are spectacular, you pass scores of interesting places, and you don't cross a single road until you are very close to Bermondsey Station - just over 4 miles from Vauxhall. And if the tide is out (click here to check the tide at London Bridge) then you can get down on the foreshore at a number of places, including onto a rather good beach just 300 metres or so downstream from Waterloo Bridge.
You can vary the above walk by taking the riverbus from point to point. One riverbus runs every 40 minutes from outside the Tate Gallery - just the other side of Vauxhall Bridge - down to "the Eye" at Waterloo and the Tate Modern, and vice versa, linking with other riverbuses along the way, so you can extend the trip down to the Tower of London and Greenwich. Family tickets mean you can travel all day for around Ł4 a head.

The Horniman Museum is the premier south-of-the-river museum and includes a very attractive and interesting aquarium (I particularly like the jellyfish!) as well as some fascinating African exhibits, a mini Natural History Museum and frequently changed special exhibitions. There is really is something to interest every age and every taste, all set in a beautiful hill-top park. The address is 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London SE23, admission is free, and bus 185 (from Vauxhall and the Oval) stops right outside.

The Cuming Museum is a miniature British Museum and the nearest thing there is to a museum of local history. Hidden within the Newington Library complex at 155 Walworth Road, just the other side of the Elephant & Castle, it is a little old-fashioned but interesting nonetheless. Between 1780 and 1900 Richard & Henry Cuming collected over 100,000 objects from all over the world. Henry left his collection to the people of Southwark, and the Cuming Museum opened in 1906.
The Type Museum is at 100 Hackford Road, SW9 0QU in a range of industrial buildings built between 1895 and 1905 as a veterinary hospital. Open Days are held on the first Wednesday of each month, and include demonstrations of a range of skills, usually including punch and matrix making and type casting. Demonstrations start at 10 am, noon, and 2 pm. But you should check first (7735 0055) before coming to the Museum. The Museum's mission is to collect, preserve and interpret the historic artefacts associated with the spread of the printed word and image throughout the world, and to place them in the context of modern technology and design, and of the far longer history of mankind's use of graphic symbols. It has a number of key collections including:
- traditional typefounding, from Stephenson Blake and Co., Sheffield
- woodletter type, from Robert DeLittle, York, and
- mechanical typecasting ('hot metal'), from the Monotype Corporation.

Lambeth Palace, next to Lambeth Bridge dates back to the 1200s. But it is usually only open during Open House Weekend (see Free Events: September, below.) or for the Lambeth Parish Fete (Gardens only) in June - also see below).

All Lambeth Vauxhall/Kennington residents can join the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery for free. In return for Lambeth Council's support for the South Bank complex, we can all get a free monthly listing magazine, advance booking and other perks and discounts. Join now before they change their mind! - but note you cannot join via the websites. You need to phone or call in.
St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lambeth Road SE1, is a Pugin masterpiece re-built after war damage.
St John's Church (on the roundabout at the South/east end of Waterloo Bridge) hosts free concerts by the excellent Southbank Sinfonia every Thursday from 1800-1900. And you can have a glass of wine, too!
St John the Divine in Vassall Road SW9, is "the most magnificent church in South London" according to Sir John Betjeman
St Mary's Greek Cathedral, 305 Camberwell New Road, is a lttle-known South London jewel with a spendid Byzantine interior.

St Peter's Church in Liverpool Grove, just off the Walworth Road, is the best preserved of the churches designed by Sir John Soane, one of England's greatest architects. The weather vane on top of the dome was controversial at the time the church was consecrated in 1825. The son of a bricklayer, Soane was the architect of many famous buildings, including the Royal Hospital in Chelsea and the interiors of 10/11 Downing Street. He turned his house at 12 Lincoln's Inn Fields into a wonderful museum, which is still open to the public.

London Duck Tours use amphibious vehicles to give their guests a run round Westminster before the excitement of splashing into the Thames at Lacks Dock (just north of the MI6 building, itself just north of Vauxhall Bridge) for a sail down to Westminster Bridge and back. The tours depart from the back of the Marriott Hotel, on Westminster Bridge, and places can be booked on 7928 3132.

The nearest cycle track is at Herne Hill Velodrome in Burbage Road, SE24.

See Things to do with Children for information about nearby swimming pools.

Local residents interested in photography might like to join the Camera Club at 16 Bowden Street, just behind Kennington Cross. The club is in attractive renovated premises which offer a superb range of facilities, including a digital suite for manipulating and printing digital images, as well as a studio and darkroom for more traditional photo technology. Lambeth residents get a one-third discount on the normal annual fee.

Places of Worship

The number of Christian worshippers in Lambeth seems to be rising. The most prominent place of worship is St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lambeth Road SE1. The local Catholic church is St Anne's on Kennington Lane.

Anglicans can choose between a number of churches, including St Marks opposite the Oval tube station (very welcoming and lively) and St John the Divine in Vassall Road (relatively "high church").

Baptists worship at the Stockwell Baptist Church at 276 South Lambeth Road, SW8 or at the famous "Spurgeon's" Metropolitan Tabernacle down at the Elephant and Castle, SE1.

Christ Church & Upton was founded 220 years ago and stands opposite Lambeth North Tube, where its Stars and Stripes spire is an unmistakable landmark. It is now the physical hub of a virtual Christian network www.church.co.uk which provides an opportunity to discuss and debate, voice and explore questions about life, faith, Christianity and new ways of being and doing church.

The Magnificent Ministries Pentecostal Church meets every Sunday in the Turners Function Centre, 47 Dorset Road SW8 1EX. Details from 07985 141 981.

St Mary's Greek Orthodox Church is at 305 Camberwell New Road, SE5.

Visitors are also welcome to worship at the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Kennington Community Fellowship, located at Bishop Montgomery Hall, 58 Kennington Oval, London SE11 5SW. Services are every Saturday from 10:00 and they also run various activities throughout the week including basketball and football clubs, social outings and more.

The nearest mosque is the Brixton Mosque at 1 Gresham Road, SW9.

We also have two Buddhist centres in or near our area, representing two great schools of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the Kagyupa and the Gelugpa. One is the Jamyang Buddhist Centre at the Old Courthouse, 43 Renfrew Road, SE11, and the other is Kagyu Samye Dzong, currently on Carlisle Lane, SE1 but relocating to Manor Place, Southwark, SE17 around the end of 2007.

Information Please!

Please contact me by email if you would like your event or venue listed on this site.