The Herne Hill Society blog

Brockwell Park Festivals Proposals

We learn that Lambeth Council’s plans to allow music festivals again in Brockwell Park are well advanced, all subject of course to COVID-19.

Published documents now available on Brixton Buzz show that a Summer Event Series 2021 is envisaged, with up to six large / major event days taking place over two consecutive weekends, and medium / small community event days taking place in the weekdays between.

Final decisions will supposedly be made next spring. But the Council has naturally been in discussion with the operators already, and appears disposed to grant permission. So, pandemic permitting, the park will again hold a major event organised by Mighty Hoopla, plus other events.

The occupation of a large area of the park would start on Wednesday 26 May (when the contractors are admitted) lasting until Sunday 20 June 2021 when the derig ends. Allow several more weeks for repairing any damage done to the ground of the park, though the festival organisers pay a deposit in advance for making good any damage caused.

On "Major Event Days", planning will be in place to accommodate 25,000 on site each day. On "Large Event Days" (mid-week community days), planning will be in place to accommodate up to 10,000 on site.

Divisive?

As in previous years, the prospect of such events provokes controversy.

Some people are content to see the park used in ways that brings fun to mainly young(ish) people, and some financial benefit to the Council and some local businesses. Others are opposed to offering this public amenity to what are, in effect, commercial operators whose events can damage the park, create noise disturbance and disrupt local streets.

According to a recent Brixton Buzz article, The Friends of Brockwell Park, in particular, are leading the outcry and inviting people to protest to Lambeth Councillors by 8 December, and to the events team at Lambeth Council at [email protected]. Any local resident is entitled to comment of course.

A Brockwell Boy

This delightful memoir recalling Brockwell Park, in particular as it was in the 1930s and 40s, has long been out of print but has now been revised and will be republished by the Society on Wed 17 May.

Author Jeffrey Rumble was born in 1931 and grew up in Herne Hill a “depression kid”, living for 45 years in the same house in Hawarden Grove off Rosendale Road until 1976, when his work took him out of Lambeth. Brockwell Park, a stone’s throw from his home, was his playground. The memoir vividly recalls the Park as it was, not least in the years of the Second World War: as the author says, “a very disturbed period of our national history”. Contemporary photographs and the author’s own drawings punctuate the book.

This is a picture drawn with wit and affection, undimmed by the passage of time. It is a world of childhood adventures, no-nonsense Park Keepers and the dangers of “doodlebugs”. This new and revised edition makes available a story that anyone who values the role Brockwell Park plays in the life of Herne Hill will have pleasure in reading.

A Brockwell Boy can be purchased from Herne Hill Books or direct from the Society, price £3.50. To buy online go to http://www.hernehillsociety.org.uk/HHS_store/product/a_brockwell_boy

 

Policing Report from Herne Hill Ward

Since May 2014, Lambeth has been the 'top' borough in London for violence against the person crimes, overtaking Westminster. For the year to July 2014, 7,937 crimes of this kind took place in Lambeth, up 17% on the previous year. The figures for Southwark were 6,911 (up 9%).

Lambeth police have had success in tackling burglary and robbery, with the rates of both in Herne Hill decreasing significantly over the last year. Given the increasing problems with 'violence against the person' and 'theft of/from motor vehicle' offences, these have been adopted as new priorities for the police in Lambeth.

At the Herne Hill Safer Neighbourhood Panel on 9 September we raised the question of why Lambeth has such high levels of violent crime. The view of the police was that this is due to gangs and inter-gang conflict. This has been a long-term problem in the borough, and is an issue that cannot be solved only by the police: it is an area where Lambeth Council seems to have fallen behind other councils, including Southwark.

In other respects crime in Herne Hill tends to be lower than in other of the central Lambeth wards. There have been some incidents of burglary around Brockwell Park, and some nuisance offences in the park. There have been some incidents of robbery (particularly of mobile phones) in the area around Ruskin Park, and the importance of safety awareness was emphasised.

The police have recently carried out traps on Herne Hill Road with a speed gun, and will also be covering Milkwood Road.

Nicholas Edwards

Brockwell Lido Fun Palace

On Sunday 5 October, between 11am and 6pm, Brockwell Lido will be transformed into a Fun Palace. You’ll be able to swim with mermaids, paddle a kayak, watch Barry the Illusioneer, ask a physicist about the effects on water on the body, play human noughts & crosses, learn to sign, play new ball craze Waboba (there are freebies too!) and do a host of other things… and all for free. Everyone is welcome. Lanes will still be open for regular swimmers and the poolside area by the gym will be a Fun Palace free zone. Everything else will become our Fun Palace.

In 1961, theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price had the idea to create a fun palace, a ‘laboratory of fun,’: a place where the community could engage, learn and participate. Joan said, ‘everyone an artist, everyone a scientist,’ with an emphasis on arts and science coming together.  Their Fun Palace never happened, the space wasn’t available, they needed technology but didn’t have it – but we do. Now, in our own way, as a tribute to them in Joan’s centenary year, there are Fun Palaces popping up all over the country. To date over 100 have signed up, including the RSC, the Southbank, a chocolate shop in Chester, and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill.

Who knows what kind of Fun Palace Joan and Cedric would have intended? We are not trying to second-guess what theirs might have been, but are taking their idea and making it our own. It’s very much up to each community to decide what to do, but everyone is welcome to create and be part of the process. Credit goes to local writer/director Stella Duffy who had the idea to take Joan and Cedric’s idea and make Fun Palaces happen.  Along with her co-director Sarah-Jane Rawlings, they had the mammoth task of facilitating everything, taking an idea and making everyone understand it, involving website designers, getting people and companies and communities involved.

So what exactly is a Fun Palace? See http://funpalaces.co.uk/about/

And our page – http://funpalaces.co.uk/discover/brockwell-lido-fun-palace/I’ve never put together anything like this before – I’m a writer, mine is a mostly solitary job. Making the Brockwell Lido Fun Palace take shape has been an extraordinary experience, where I have asked for help, and received it, and learned a whole new set of skills I didn’t know I had!  Along with our group of Fun Palaceers, made up of friends and strangers, and my brilliant co-fundraiser, Maggie Saunders, dozens of people have said yes to being part of the process. It’s also allowed me to engage more with my own community – I now have a real sense of what that word means and how we can all help each other. It’s been a pleasure, hard work, time consuming, but always satisfying.

Everyone has – and is – giving their time for free.  We are fortunate to have been sponsored by mostly local companies, Fusion at Brockwell Lido have been totally supportive, as has the Lido Café. They will be offering  50% off their regular BBQ rate on Fun Palace day. We’re hoping to show a film, but are awaiting confirmation. Follow us on Twitter  @BLIDOFUNPALACE to keep up to date. And if you are keen to volunteer on the day or post flyers for us, we welcome you. Our next meeting is on Monday 1 September at the Lido Café @6pm. This will be the last one before the Fun Palace happens. And if you’re really lucky you may get to see a Mermaid…

Shelley Silas 
Brockwell Lido Fun Palace Maker

News from Ruskin Park Bandstand

Next Saturday (12 July) we'll join in Our Big Gig, a nationwide Olympic Legacy celebration of live community music. Starting at 1:00pm and running until 5:00pm, the event will feature:

• Dulwich community choir Note-orious singing popular music and songs from the shows http://www.note-orious.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx
• The Pandemonium Drummers - remember them from the Olympic Opening Ceremony? With a chance for everyone to get involved http://www.pandemoniumdrummers.co.uk/
• King Groovy and the Hornstars, one of London's great dance bands. http://hornstars.com/ Slightly Ballroom will be here again to encourage anyone who wants to dance

All this in our little local park! All ages, all free. See you there, I hope.

For other local events, see http://www.superact.org.uk/ourbiggig/

The old stable block in Ruskin Park – a new future?

From the late 18th century onwards villas for London’s merchant and professional classes began to line Denmark Hill and Herne Hill. Away from the smoke and grime of the city one can imagine the attraction of what remained for some 100 years a semi-rural setting. One is reminded of the words in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury (1875) “Camberwell became a bower, Peckham an Arcadian vale”. 

Until the arrival of the railways in South East London in the 1860s horses were the means of transport for the owners of these villas when travelling to work in the City. And that is the origin of the stable block in Ruskin Park, the two-storey building close to the junction of Denmark Hill and Ferndene Road and dating from the first half of the 19th century. It belonged to the house at No. 172 Denmark Hill, though was closer to the neighbouring house at No.174.

The leases of these and other neighbouring houses with their extensive garden land came to an end in the first decade of the last century. The question then arose as to whether there would be the sort of denser housing development of the sort that characterises suburban London as we know it today. Fortunately, led by a local resident, Frank Trier, the idea of establishing a public park found wide support and funding from the London County Council. Nos. 172 and 174 and six other houses were demolished, but in their place Ruskin Place was laid out, opening to the public in 1907.

The stable block was retained for park maintenance purposes and male and female toilet blocks also provided, either added at that date or possibly adapted from older outbuildings linked to the stable block. The toilet blocks closed several years ago, and the stable block itself has, more recently, become disused, following local authority expenditure cuts and outsourcing of park maintenance.

The old stable block is locally listed by Lambeth and is an attractive building with distinct character, whose exterior retains all its essential historic features. It is a rare survivor in this part of London, a telling reminder of a lost world and definitely worth preserving. It is therefore encouraging that Heritage Lottery funding for a detailed appraisal of the building and its future has become available, the appraisal being carried out by architects Edwards Rensen. The Herne Hill Society recently researched the stable block’s history and has provided a report to the architects.

As part of the appraisal, there is to be an open consultation on the future of the stable block between 10.00am and 4.00pm on Sunday 18 May, at the Playground in Ruskin Park. And Friends of Ruskin Park are then holding a public meeting the following Tuesday, 20 May, at the Cambria pub, Kemerton Road, where the stable block’s future will be discussed.