Kennington Park


Kennington Park is a public park in Kennington, south London and lies between Kennington Park Road and St. Agnes Place. It was opened in 1854 on the site of what had been Kennington Common, where the Chartists gathered for their biggest "monster rally" on 10 April 1848. Soon after this demonstration the common was enclosed and, sponsored by the royal family, made into a public park.
Kennington Common was a site of public executions until 1800 as well as being an area for public speaking. Some of the most illustrious orators to speak here were Methodist founders George Whitefield and John Wesley who is reputed to have attracted a crowd of 30,000.
The common was one of the earliest London cricket venues and is known to have been used for top-class matches in 1724. Kennington Park hosts the first inner London community cricket ground, sponsored by Surrey County Cricket Club whose home, The Oval, is close to the park. Casual games of both cricket and football are regularly held in the park.
In the 1970s, the old tradition of mass gatherings returned to the park which was host to the start of many significant marches to Parliament. Today, a number of commercial and community events are held in the park each year and recently the Flower Garden was restored with a Heritage Lottery grant. The Friends of Kennington Park, FoKP, was founded in 2002 and provides a local forum for park issues as well as fundraising for improvements.

Kennington Common

Before 1600

Although there are no available written records of the area before 1600, analysis of the area's archaeology and landscape reveals its earlier history. Recently discovered post stumps in the south Thames foreshore near Vauxhall Bridge point to a ritual jetty or possibly the first London bridge, by the outlet of the River Effra, from around 1500 BC. The Effra formed the southerly boundary to the common.
Three closely related geographic features defined the area of Kennington Common as sacred in ancient times: the sharp bend in the river Effra before it flowed into the Thames, a strategic mound or tumulus, and an important fork in the main road from the river crossing which is now known as London Bridge. This made it a sacred place of 'national' assembly which may have related to the jetty or bridge. The mound may have also been used by the locals of the South London marsh community as a refuge from tidal flash floods. As the flood water receded, the river silt left a level field which was ideal for grazing animals or playing team ball games.

17th century

  • 1600 gives the first record of the common. "The common was bounded on the South West by Vauxhall Creek" It seems that the common extended over marshy land to the South West of the Roman Road Stane Street, now Kennington Park Road. When the common became bounded by the Kennington Park Road is not known. There is a 1660 record of a common keeper being paid for grazing.
  • 1661 The famous Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens are laid out nearby.
  • 1678 First recorded execution at Kennington Common was that of Sarah Elston who was burnt for murdering her husband on 24 April. Kennington Common was the South London equivalent of Tyburn.
  • 1678 John Masters and Gabriel Dean, highwaymen, executed on 24 April.
  • 1679 Dorothy Lillingstone was executed for murder on 7 April.
  • 1685 William Disney was executed for High Treason on 29 June.

    18th century

"During the holiday season, Kennington Common in the last century was an epitome of "Bartlemy Fair", with booths, tents, caravans, and scaffolds, surmounted by flags. It also had one peculiarity, for, as we learn from "Merrie England in the Olden Time", it was a favourite spot for merryandrews, and other buffooneries in open rivalry, and competition with field-preachers and ranters. It was here that Mr. Maw-worm encountered the brickbats of his congregation, and had his "pious tail" illuminated with the squibs and crackers of the unregenerate."
  • 1724 London v Dartford is the earliest known cricket match on Kennington Common
  • 1725 First record of the Green Man and Horns Tavern near Kennington Common. The cricket played on the common used the Horns as a base. Also other sports including quoits and bowling were played.
  • 1739 Methodists John Wesley and George Whitefield preach to 30,000. Whitefield is remembered in the nearby 'Whitefield House' home of the Evangelical Alliance. Dissenting Methodists, such as the son of a slave Robert Wedderburn, spoke in a more radical voice on Kennington Common speaking out against the enclosures and slavery. Kennington Common was a key South London place for public speaking, acting as a kind of open air free university of the day.
  • 1739 John Hannah executed for robbery and perjury.
  • 1743 James Hunt and Thomas Collins hanged for sodomy at Kennington Common gallows.
  • 1746 Col. Francis Towneley and eight men of the Manchester Regiment who had taken part in the Jacobite rising were hanged, drawn and quartered on 30 July.
  • 1749 Richard Coleman executed "for a murder he did not commit" on 12 April.
  • 1751 A road was "cut through gardens 80-foot wide" from Kennington Common to Westminster Bridge.. The road is Kennington Road and comes up to the common next to the Horns tavern.
  • 1767 The common was flooded by a high tide coming up Vauxhall Creek.
  • 1785 Last known use of the Common as a venue for first-class cricket.
  • 1790 William Blake moved to North Lambeth and may have attended commons meetings in the 1790s, in all likelihood with Thomas Paine.
  • 1792 Mungo, a black prize fighter breaks the jaw of his opponent, a carpenter, in a boxing match on the common.
  • 1795 Lewis Jeremiah Avershaw an infamous highwayman, was executed for shooting a Peace Officer on 3 August.
  • 1799 The last person to be hanged at the common was a fraudster from nearby Camberwell by the name Badger.
  • "The Gymnastic Society" met regularly at Kennington Common during the second half of the eighteenth century to play football The Society – arguably the world's first football club – consisted of London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

    19th century

  • 1800 The much-respected Mr. Briant becomes landlord of the Horns runs a famous Glee Club. Briant died 1852 but his relatives still live in Kennington, one of whom chaired the Parks Management Advisory Committee in 1996.
  • 1815 In February, a mob breaks windows 'round the Horns'. LifeGuards called out to quell the mob. The Riot Act was read. In 1819 The Peterloo Massacre signalled an end to repression by violence.
  • 1818 Camberwell New Road is built running east/west, cutting the southern corner of the common off from the rest of it.
  • 1824 St. Mark's Church by D. R. Roper, built on an enclosed corner of the common, over the river Effra. Promoted by the Church of England as the 'salvation of the common', twenty four years later it was the vicar of this church who led the move to enclose the whole common.
  • 1832 First Reform Act, after which hustings were set up on Kennington Common.
  • 1845 Surrey County Cricket Club formed at the Horns.
  • 1848 10 April Chartist mass meeting organised by Black Briton and leader of London Chartists William Cuffay. Chartism was a federation of different groups who had agreed on a set of political demands for an inclusive people's democracy. Chartism was the first British national working class organisation. 1848 was known as the Year of Revolutions.
  • 1848 First photograph of a crowd taken by William Kilburn probably from the Horns. The daguerrotype negative is now kept by and copyright Queen Elizabeth and is kept in the Royal archives at Windsor Castle.
  • Around 1849 William Booth preached here.
  • 1852 Kennington Common was enclosed. The petition for enclosure was led by the vicar of St. Mark's, aided by the young Prince of Wales. No more gathering or vulgar recreations were allowed without permission. The sacred mound was levelled, the common fenced and landscaped into an urban park. Planted with mostly sapling London Plane trees. North and South game pitches are fenced with iron railings.
"Inclosure, thou'rt a curse upon the land, And tasteless was the wretch who thy existence plann'd" John Clare the peasant poet from Peterborough
By now there were more people in cities than country. London's population had reached 2.5 million.
Image:KP-Alberts-Cottage2.jpg|thumb|right|Prince Albert's Model Cottage was moved to the common in 1852

19th century

  • 1854 Kennington Park opened and maintained by the Crown's Office of Works.
  • 1859 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens opened for the last time on the night of Monday, 25 July 1859.
  • 1861 Two panelled gardens laid out by John Gibson on the west side to either side the lodge.
  • 1861 A gymnasium erected.
  • 1861 Meeting of the Juvenile Temperance Society allowed in the summer.
  • 1862 Felix Slade drinking water fountain designed by Charles Henry Driver. Slade donated this after feeling sorry for the local children who, after playing in the gymnasium, had been taking their refreshment from the cab horse trough.
  • 1869 Sir Henry Doulton donates local artist George Tinworth's 'Fountain of Life'.
  • 1874 Parish of St Agnes, Kennington Park founded.
  • 1877 Church of St. Agnes, Kennington Park consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London.
  • 1887 Kennington Park maintenance passed over to London's Metropolitan Board of Works.
  • 1889 Kennington Park passed to London County Council that later became the Greater London Council, GLC, in 1965.
  • 1896 A 7-year old Charlie Chaplin spent a day playing in the park after his mother discharged the family from the Lambeth Workhouse in desperation to see her children. After a day in the park and at a coffee-shop they returned to the workhouse to undergo the shameful admissions process again.
  • 1897 An Arts & Crafts style refreshment house erected which is now a rare survival.
  • 1898 Princess of Wales Theatre, designed by W. G. R. Sprague, opens at the height of the music hall era. The theatre had one of earliest air conditioning systems.
  • 1899 The first all-night illuminated footpath through a public park.