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Down The Blue: The Cafe Situation

Grosvenor Estates have bought the Peek and Frean Biscuit Factory site.  Peek and Frean used to be a major employer in Bermondsey but closed in 1989.  The company brought the world the Twiglet and the beloved, delicious Garibaldi squashed fly biscuit.  Now the old factory is home to small businesses; graphic artists, designers, studios.  Grosvenor Estates famously developed Belgravia and Mayfair and are now looking at the potential of The Blue, the area around Blue Anchor Lane, linked to Borough by Southwark Park Road.  Grosvenor Estates are doing their homework on what the area needs to become another trendy London location and sent round a questionnaire asking what residents think would improve the area.  One of the suggestions was more cafes.

This sent me out to look at the cafes already here. I already knew and love Mr. Cappuchinos on Jamaica Road. There you can get a newspaper, an enormous range of hot and cold sandwiches and panninis, the usual range of coffees though they have not yet upgraded to a barista to serve them, and can sit either inside or out on the extraordinarily wide pavement.

In the Biscuit Factory itself there is a good old-fashioned cafe with good solid  hot meals served mostly to the workers in the Biscuit Factory and  the workmen currently crawling all over the Four Squares Estate.

The other side of the railway arches, in what is properly The Blue, the first cafe is the Curry Den, probably named for the famous Milwall Football Team, recently relegated, who's home is The Den, just up the road. Here you can try their famous Piri Piri grilled chicken. They are very nice people and once specially made samosas for me when I popped in.

 Then there is Lou Farrow's Snack Bar and Take Away; Traditional Pie and Mash.  Here they serve meat pies, eel and 'liquor' a mysterious green soup which turns our to be made with parsley.   It is a real, traditional eel pie and mash cafe, and they are rare these days.

Going on down Southwark Park Road are Pete's Bakery, which sells cakes and serves coffee, the Pop In Cafe, oh the other side of the road, and a Wimpy bar.  I haven't seen a Wimpy bar since the 60s.  So I looked it up on Wikipedia and found, to my astonishment, that Wimpy is South African.  Maybe that is why they suddenly vanished from British streets.  The first UK Wimpy was opened in Lyons Corner House, Coventry Road, London in 1954.  This one is at 251A Southwark Park Road.  Checking on the internet the one on Southwark Park Road looks to be the very last one left serving.

Next comes the Market Square where I get my jellied eels and news of Millwall football club from the fishmonger.  Here there is the Lucya Cafe which serves a traditional menu to the locals.  

There is also the Star Express, serving huge breakfasts, a huge range of burgers and sandwiches, Turkish meat balls and liver and onions. and finally there is Duns Delicatessen which serves that other well known London delicacy, salt beef sandwiches along with a splendid all day breakfast including kippers, haddock, black or white pudding and porridge as well as toasted ciabattas and panninis.  All seem well-loved by locals Although it is wonderful to have the huge range of coffees and delicious food served in more fashionable locations round London there is still a place in my heart for these traditional cafes.

Four Squares Estate: Guerilla gardening

Below my flat are two large brick raised beds for flowers.  They have a couple of sad, diseased looking rose bushes in them and a lot of weeds.  It did not take me long to get the itch to rescue them.  But where to find flowers in Bermondsey?  In Birmingham there are plant shops on just about every street plus a garden centre just behind where I live  .London is a vast urban desert with no plants.  I try Tesco, Canada Water, Jamaica Road.  Wherever I go in London I look for shops selling cheap plants.  Or any plants, with roots.  Or bulbs.    The only place I see plants in profusion is Chelsea Flower Show and they are not for sale.
  
Only in The Blue, at the small, struggling local market, can I find plug plants, sold from a barrow.  They are amazed when I buy up, at a very good price, all the plug geraniums I can carry in two large plastic bags.
I plant them out and go back for more.
Then I collect all the seed from my garden and throw it all over the beds.
Result, a fine crop of opium poppies, a few foxgloves, nasturtiums and a lot of cheerful mixed geraniums.

In the autumn I have the job of removing all the dead plants.  I plant tulip and narcissi bulbs and, in February,  I bring some snowdrops.  They all come up.

This year the Four Squares Estate renovations are all happening.  The council blocks are all covered in scaffolding and green netting.  I thought it would be dark under all the nets but it is really not too bad, and it is very exciting to see wonderful shiny new UPVC windows going in.  Suddenly the run down Four Squares is looking almost respectable.

Because of the building work I did nothing to the guerilla garden this spring.  But nature did its work for me.  A fine crop of foxgloves has taken over.














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Tigers in Southwark Park

Bermondsey and Rotherhithe have a beautiful city park.  Southwark Park is right on the boundary between the old boroughs and there used to be a lot of in-fighting between them over its management.  Now they are both part of Southwark and the park is listed Grade II.  With Kings Stairs Gardens across Jamaica Road this green lung goes right down to the river.   Surrounded by council flats it is still like being out in the countryside.

There is quite a lot of wildlife

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There is a bandstand from Queen Victoria's Great Exhibition, installed in 1884 and a drinking fountain..




There are two wonderful caryatids holding up nothing in the shrubbery. These come from Rotherhithe Old Town Hall, 1897, which was bombed in World War II.  In 1974 these were moved to the Heygate Estate, but now that huge council block has been demolished they are in the park

By 1885 a boating lake had been added, and there are still paddle boats for hire.

Near the lake is the oasis of Ada Salter's Garden.  Ada Salter was married to Dr. Alfred Salter.  They both worked tirelessly to improve the slums of Bermondsey, fighting disease and trying to improve the borough's housing and living spaces.  They planted the thousands of trees we still enjoy and created gren space wherever they could.  Ada became the first woman Labour Mayor in 1922, Alfred Salter became a Labour MP and both were Labour councillors.  The garden was created in memory of Ada Salter in 1934.

There are two art galleries showing pretty good exhibitions, a nice cafe, a good playground, a running track, lots of space for ball games and running around and a bowls club.  The park is used a lot by the locals especially mums with small children.

Across Jamaica Road on the Thames is Kings Stairs Gardens.  Edward III built a manor house here in the 14th century and it was used until Tudor times.  Later there was a working commercial pottery on the site.  The remains of the manor house are still there in the garden.   Here is an artist's idea of what the manor looked like.

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