I found this piece on the Museum Of London website whilst researching my stations’ route. Despite their disavowal, it seems to me to be actually much closer to the reality of today’s London than maybe anyone is prepared to admit.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens ballooning poster, 1830-1836.
“Vauxhall made efforts to keep ‘the riff-raff’ of the city outside its elegant gates but still managed to garner a louche, dubious reputation as its wooded groves and shaded alleyways seemed the perfect place for discreet assignations, so much so that well-dressed prostitutes were so associated with the garden that London print-shops sold images with titles like ‘The Vauxhall Demi-Rep’, depicting ladies in expensive but beguiling, revealing clothing.
One of the most scandalous events at Vauxhall occurred at a fancy dress masquerade in 1749, when the courtier Elizabeth Chudleigh arrived ‘dressed’ as the classical figure Iphigenia – her costume consisting of nothing more than a thin scarf draped over her body, showing off more than it hid. Again, the press and print-sellers had a field day. Even respectable Ranelagh had its disturbances, such as the 1764 riot caused by servants and coachmen angry at the abolition of ‘vails’, or tips.
So vivid was the idea of the London pleasure garden as a place of danger, debauchery and drunkenness that it was frequently used as a backdrop for contemporary novels, ballads and prints. The heroes and heroines of numerous 18th and early 19th century novels end up in a pleasure garden at some point, and usually worse off at the end of the evening than at the beginning of it – from Frances Burney’s virtuous Evelina, pursued through the trees of Vauxhall by men intent on harassment and maybe worse, to William Thackeray’s comic character Jos Sedley, in Vanity Fair, suffering literature’s worst hangover after a night of Vauxhall punch.
There was nothing quite like the London pleasure garden, and no modern equivalent exists. It was a place where the glittering world of wealth, fashion and high culture showed off its seedy underside; where princes partied with prostitutes, and the middle classes went to be shocked and titillated by the excess on display. Simultaneously an art gallery, a restaurant, a brothel, a concert hall and a park, the pleasure garden was the place where Londoners confronted their very best, and very worst, selves. When Vauxhall finally closed in 1859, it was the end of an era, never to be repeated.”
16th August 2023: The maze, OK, not Tokyo Station complexity, but still, that is exiting Vauxhall station, low hi-rise buildings along the street in the direction of Italo. Moving along what are still, to me, the old outer reaches of London; apposite then to walk past a building holding the British Interplanetary Society.
The old school, the ringing of the lesson bell long silenced, name still over the entrance door, now yet another block of gated, expensive apartments. Coming up to Bonnington Sq, palm-trees planted in profusion, a dissonant feel to the usual urban greenery.
Upstairs above the cafe refurb work in progress so gantry and scaffolding making an obstacle course of the pavement, yellow foam buffers to protect human dodgems. A large old lamp, rounded glass and shade dominating the shop entrance.
Ordering a sandwich & double espresso, pouring a glass of iced water from a plastic water-jug that somehow reminds me of school-days, jumping on their black-board scratched wi-fi then back out to take a table.
A striking black woman and male companion, asking politely to remove the chair opposite me which is fine but I don’t know why it’s needed by them as there’s already two there? I’m all alone on my small table now, waiting for my snack to appear, promised at a prompt 5 minutes after midday when the kitchen actually opens. I’ve ordered the Blue BLT.
I know the park is very close by so can ‘afford’ (what a strange phrase this is, all because capitalism insists on us working and doling out our time in bite sized chunks) the time to sit and watch and listen and smell and plan. I realise I’m (probably annoyingly) tapping my fingers on my table to the music flowing from the cafe whilst also unashamedly ear-wigging, listening to the lady on the mobile wheelchair who’s dominating the conversation she’s holding across another empty table towards a party of four young pople. An older man who’d been standing next to her and nodding along, with unshaven face, one crutch supporting him as he weaves past my table, I look up and smile and nod in acknowledgement and he smiles back. The couple next to me, she’s now complaining about living in Ibiza and being flirted with. She’s that chocolate colour, cafe au lait, complexion, young, and as Val says,”toothsome”.
The bright red table chairs a splash of colour against the pavement, the bricks, the greenery.
A woman, dark hair, dressed head to foot in black, Chelsea boots. Sitting in group, of 4 people but frantically typing away on her phone.
Cafe au lait lady, she’s now talking about the “fashion show”. He’s saying he must do an interview. Sounds Brazilian, not sure why I think that but he also looks Brazilian
The lady in the wheelchair is speaking t0 the café boss-lady and I can hear her going off-menu for her sandwich choice, which, as an obvious regular, she gets a smiled agreement to.
Lazy pavement wandering pigeon being chased off by the inexorable, bull-dozer like progress of a woman dressed in a long blue dress pushing a pram with baby, who takes a seat at the next table.
Hearing the rasp of sandpaper sounds from above, as the builders scrape away at old paint.
Cafe au lait lady is now almost in tears as she’s complaining about her bosses and how one of them continually pushes her away from her desk and her laptop in this “hot desk” office.
Seeing suddenly over the heads at the other table, a large pink teddy toy discarded on the pavement by the telephone pole, which itself trails new fibre optic leads to be livened up later. Walk over to take a photo. Old meets new.
A couple, man & woman, walking into the cafe with arms full of large potted plants. And then out again a minute or two later, without apparently buying anything.
Inside, strung everywhere, over the till and counter and shelves of provisions, long strands of tape hung …
…with squared posters with “Fuck the Tories” in red letters emblazoned above a photo of execrable Johnson.
Leaning back in my seat outside and looking up, I can see the occasional roof garden that reminds me of Deal
Leaving, a quick stroll needed now back along towards the old park. At a intersection, the white peeling paint over the arched doorway says “Saint Annes Settlement”. Wonder briefly about why she chose to settle here.
St Anne’s Church, South Lambeth, c 1825, by G. Yates
Crossing a — suddenly busy — road, at an unusual for me run, as cars and buses appear from my left — apparently from nowhere — with the sole intent of aiming to mow me down, I almost reach the safety of the pavement, except, no, there’s a fucking bike lane to get over and they too are IN. A. HURRY. I’m an obstacle. They’re cunts (only because I’m on foot of course). Safety now. Head to the park. entrance a few steps away.
Remember when I was last here, back in the 90s. Far, far fewer people, far, far fewer low & high rise buildings, far, far fewer cars. Open. Wind-swept. Grass peeling back in brown chunks. Barren almost.
Now gentrified, landscaped, manicured to fuck, thinking of the old pub that was at the edge to the north, replete with lunchtime strippers who did their work behind badly blacked out windows and doors, no longer obvious. It may still be there, or I may have the wrong ‘edge’ or it may simply too have succumbed to the on-rush of money and demand and cleaning and cleansing and been demolished. I can’t recall the name though.
A group playing petanque in the shadows;
I find out later this is an officially assigned “area”. Couples and friends sitting on newly (to me) raised grassy hillocks in the shade of the trees. Nowhere obviously available though for me to sit, at least not without being an unwelcome guest at their groups. No Banquo me, but also not so confident that I wish to seem to intrude and push my physical presence too close.
I find an old tree trunk that’s been pruned and cleaned and flattened into what is now a bench. It sits in the open, under the sun and there’s a suited man on the other end already, but it’s what I need and I take my place at the other end, feeling like a see-saw, unwrapping my blue-wrapped Blue BLT and, suddenly hungry, demolish, no, inhale, that. It’s very good.
I see the rubbish and paper and bottle tops that other people have jammed into the grooves and cracks in the old trunk’s surface. I carefully wrap mine in the paper towels they gave me to clean my hands and mouth and head towards a “water bottle filling station”. Unlike the old water-fountains at school, this water flows down but I’m able to get enough without drowning my shoes or clothes to ensure I’m cleaned and then can drop the crunched paper and wrapper into the council bin.
The groups under the large chestnut trees
close by
laid out large blankets and tables with what on them? Getting closer as I pass along the path, I can see food in hygienic, sealable containers, ready for a meeting which I sense isn’t far off as more people arrive and the buzz of conversation rises. A lovely day to picnic. I would stay and ask what they are and what they meet for but my lunch-time table is booked and whilst is only 10 minutes away and I have more path, maybe more than 10 minutes, oops, to follow my ‘path’ still.
Helicopter clatters overhead. Police? Security services? An oligarch? Can’t tell. The always known, always comforting rattle of the trains on the nearby tracks. A red whit and blue liveried South Eastern railway train. Memories of this line, disembarking at Vauxhall for work. Between a cool alleyway of trees (did you know Napoleon planted Plane trees to shade his troops alongside roads in France?).
I see the railway arches Val mentioned.
A girl crouches on the ground to the side of the path to investigate the contents of and then to re-pack, her bag. I detour so as not to seem a threat. Older, now multi use buildings.
In the half-shade of the viaduct group of old people, as though frozen in time, staring out from under-arch windows.
Out onto Albert Embankment, I look right, the view goes all the way towards the white MOD building on the Embankment, north side.
Cross over the road, ducking down to the left onto the river-walk, but frustrated after only 20 yards or so, as the public spaces — the public riverside — are being closed off by private money and power.
Tat disguising pathetic cost cutting ‘landcaping’
Retrace my steps back past a statue of an old god holding a globe on his shoulders. Atlas I assume.
A group of young lads, in regimented running gear, leaving (or maybe waiting to enter) a nearby gym, amuse themselves with standing start jumps up and over high planters of flowers. A small but noticeable twinge of envy on my part, of their youth and physical abilities. Oh well.
Past a building called Tintagel House; I know the name, am pretty sure I knew of it back in the day and try to remember who or what used to have this as their HQ. Make a note to check later. I haven’t until now… Turns out it was the fucking Met Police. No wonder I shuddered. Bastards then, bastards now.
Past Macmillan Cancer Relief, no 89.
No change to the old GPO building except now, there’s no access down a ramp to the river. Part of the work on the new sewer ring-main perhaps? A large man-made island prows out into the Thames.
Next, MI6, Spook Central. Festooned with cameras and with armed police strolling by. I stand and take a couple of photos of their forest of cameras high up above as they, no doubt, photograph me, they will probably then discard the images, judging me rightly as no immediate threat. I’m old, white, alone.
Wait for all the lights to go in my favour at Vauxhall Bridge, across 6 lanes of now stationary traffic but you feel them all, champing at the bit. Past the Ove-Arup flying wings bus station on my left (and knowing that they were involved in the design and build of the SIS building, I wonder if one of their team did the station for some light relief?), past the incline into the ground that is one of the entrances to the Tube, then I see the towering, sprouting greenery that announces I’m close to Brunswick House. Relief as I pass through the front door to be greeted with a smile by one of the wait-team; more staff than customers at the moment — at least inside — where it’s cool and cavernous and the playlist is good.
Asking for the large corner table just inside the door, I can sit, back to the wall, she removes a member of the team’ rucksack & notebook and I slump happily onto the bench and I gratefully dump all my baggage and, after asking for some water and a Negroni, take a quick visit to the toilet to take a piss.
In my head I sing “Pour me a drink Theresa in one of those glasses you dust off. And I’ll watch the bones in your back like the Stations of the Cross”. Kind of a random cross-reference, I know, I know.
Back to my seat. Shazam fired up to identify a couple of tracks that I like but don’t know. Add them to my own Spotify playlist. Jacket off. My anti-racist T-shirt gets a thumbs-up and smile from a man walking into the place who, I belatedly identify (I KNOW, I KNOW that face, what the fuck is his name), as Amol Rajan who’s also eating here, but at an outside table.
The chandeliers up above, anchored securely — look precarious though — I assume, I think and hope safe, add to the Regency feel of this place; I almost expect ruffs & top hats and tailed coats on the crew. Adam And The Ants vibe. He is/was a lovely looking man.
I hear “Chris, how are you?” and look up to see JB heading my way, give a back-slapping hug, add a “how are you doing brother”, note he’s lost a lot of weight since I last saw him, then he’s talking about a recent holiday in The Hebrides with his children and then a child-free couple of days in Marseille with old friends;, we agreed on Marseille being one of those cities that like London can still be full of wonderful, wild, crazy humanity and not totally succumbed to just money and business and homogeneity. He’s cooking today which makes me happy; don’t have to go to the Cotswolds.
Watching people come in from the outside, blinking tears away to the dimmer inside illumination, bright sunshine outside temporarily blinding them. I’m forewarned for later for when I leave. Sudden blared sirens as a police car or van rushes past again rapidly, because accustomed, become background noise, not making you lift your head or prick the ears.
To my right, another singleton. I sense that he’s equally content here.
Waiting on starters and then the main, I carry on reading Jimi Famurewa’ excellent “Settlers” which feels most apposite, most appropriate in London. Where the bad white people came from, where their spoils wound up, where they forced the immigrants to move to. “We’re here because you were there” and reading that a year after I was born, 1958, there was one of the first riots in Notting Hill. Not the last such I’d imagine.
On my iPad a PDF of a a book called “Food and Multiculture, A Sensory Ethnography of East London“ by Alex Rhys-Taylor. He writes well, engagingly, provokingly. I decide to save this for a longer period when I can read through the footnotes, raid the bibliography for suggestions for more 2nd-hand buys from eBay, make my own notes and comments and maybe s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶ be inspired by some ideas for my thoughts.
Jimi talks of looking through the lens of his experience which, pace Rhys-Taylor isn’t my lens and may not even be the lens he would perhaps choose to be viewed through, by us, non Black-Africans, as you have to ask who ground it, who measured it, who chose what it would show?
Paying the bill, adding a tip to the service charge (thinking, “you do as well, don’t you” to everyone I know) and agreeing with the wait-staff comment that “you look as though you have absolutely everything you need” and reply “yes, yes, you’re right, this is my happy place”. We both smile in recognition.
Glad you liked it; it really is one of my favourite places to eat 🙂 x
I bloody loved this Chris, though I’d have gone for the Sabich…….
I was actually jealous.
G x
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