Kennington, is a district in south London, mainly within the borough of Lambeth. It’s a beautiful pocket of London and whilst there’s no way I could ever afford to live there, my friend does, so I have been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time in the area. The three most famous places in Kennington are the Oval cricket ground, the Imperial War Museum and Kennington Park (which is gorgeous, please visit)! However, none of my sketches are of the famous stuff, but of the more day to day sights, ok, predominantly pubs, I shall never get tired of sketching pubs (especially old ones).
The Tommyfield – great pub, nice food and a comedy venue upstairs, where, occasionally, pretty famous comedians come to try out some of their new material before taking to the circuit.
Prince of Wales – a small pub on the corner of the beautiful Cleaver Square (the houses here are beautiful), its picture book cutesie London. I have actually never bee inside this pub, but the outside captivates me every time I walk past it.
Durning Library – now, this building is not a pub, obviously. But, I sketched it whilst at the pub…so the link is still there! I was sitting outside The Doghouse pub with a clear line of sight of Durning Library. Such an incredibly beautiful Victorian building. Again, never been inside, I just admire from afar…with a pint.
Queens Head Cafe – I am not sure if this is technically still Kennington or not, I feel like it is. It’s not much of a walk away from the other buildings above so for the sake of this post, its in Kennington. This building clearly used to be a pub, but has since been turned into a fashionable cafe that probably sells lots of things with quinoa in. It looks fabulous from the outside and is actually situated in front of shiny modern office buildings and a train bridge running past it. I think I would like to try to capture the whole scene one day as the contrasts between old and new (which as you may know I am a huge fan of) is stunning.