Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre when new...

[cybertect]

Erno Goldfinger who designed Alexander Flemming House at Elephant and Castle

...
...was also responsible for the Trellick Tower

also the Odeon/Coronet adjacent to Alexander Fleming House, demolished in 1988.

 

[Melinda]

Its awful. An agonising shit hole.

Terribly neglected and depressing.

 

[Etymologist]

"In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
Is best to lodge."

Twelfth Night, Shakey

I was taken aback when I heard that line at the Globe, was living at E&C at the time, so I had to agree

Thats odd. It doesn't square with my quoted archivist saying "The pub first appears in written history under its familiar name in 1765". Twelfth Night was written in 1601, thats 164 years before that. I might have to drop them a line down at the southwark local history library, see if they can clear it up for me. Confusing.

 

[teuchter]

I'm another fan of the shopping centre in its current form. Going in there's a bit like time travel. Or a visit to Eastern Europe. I find it quite a calming place compared to the traffic and baffling underpass nightmare just outside.

Erno Goldfinger who designed Alexander Flemming House at Elephant and Castle

Oh. I never knew that was a Goldfinger design. But I do now.


It would be interesting to see a map of the E&C pre-war to understand where the various photos posted above are taken from.

 

[zenie]

The Friend of Kennington Park do local history talks and the history of Elephant and Castle was one of them last year. I thought you were with me at that one boohoo but it might have been another!

The pics are great

 

[cybertect]

And the elephant itself (can someone figure the viewpoint??):

Obligatory Bert Hardy reference...

http://www.jameshymangallery.com/pages/exhibition/535.html

 

[lang rabbie]

Thats odd. It doesn't square with my quoted archivist saying "The pub first appears in written history under its familiar name in 1765". Twelfth Night was written in 1601, thats 164 years before that. I might have to drop them a line down at the southwark local history library, see if they can clear it up for me. Confusing.

Because it isn't a reference to the Elephant & Castle.

It is a reference to a tavern called The Elephant in "A City in Illyria; and the Sea-coast near it

ETA ... BUT of course, now that we are all post-structuralists, we have to say that the author's intentions count for nothing and the reader views are what's count.

(i) So for me, being a bit of a sucker for historical materialist aesthetic theory, I go looking for some parallel historical sources at the time of composition:

'In the south suburbs', Antonio tells Sebastian in Twelfth Night, 'at the Elephant / Is best to lodge' (3.3. 39-40). Illyria may be a geographically remote and fictitious country. Its capital, where the comedy unfolds, often seems to shadow a more familiar city, and not just because there was, in fact, an Elizabethan inn called the Elephant in the High Street of Southwark, that London suburb south of the Thames in which Shakespeare's Globe playhouse stood. Like London, Illyria's capital is close to the sea, and also to wooded country in which its ruler can be urged to divert himself by hunting deer par force - on horseback, with hounds. According to Antonio, Orsino's city is renowned for its 'memorials and the things of fame' (23): churches, private monuments, and public buildings like those John Stow had described with loving care in his great Survey of London (1598/1603). It is a mercantile centre too, its foreign trade sufficiently important that the inhabitants of another state will even compensate for booty taken in war in order not to disrupt so beneficial a peacetime 'traffic

(ii) But if Spion really, really wants Shakespeare to have meant the Elephant & Castle, even though there was only a farriers in the middle of a field there in his day, then post-stucturally-speaking that is the truth.

 

[flash]

In some respects I'd be sad to see it go. It was part of my child hood, my nan and grandad took me shopping there when I was little. Work took me back through there about two and a half years ago (changing Thameslink to Bakerloo Line I think, can't remember exactly). Either way I was shocked at how much it had changed in about 18 odd years (err it's run down to put it bluntly, it had bled for a while and had all but flat lined). Still it's part of the area and would need to be re-built in some way.

 

[boohoo]

I'm another fan of the shopping centre in its current form. Going in there's a bit like time travel. Or a visit to Eastern Europe. I find it quite a calming place compared to the traffic and baffling underpass nightmare just outside.




Oh. I never knew that was a Goldfinger design. But I do now.


It would be interesting to see a map of the E&C pre-war to understand where the various photos posted above are taken from.

I have 1930s A-z type thing which I could lend you if you are nice to it...

 

[boohoo]

The Friend of Kennington Park do local history talks and the history of Elephant and Castle was one of them last year. I thought you were with me at that one boohoo but it might have been another!

The pics are great

yer I was at that one! It made me more aware of how pretty and grand the area had been.

 

[boohoo]

I'm a little biased to Elephant and Castle because it is the area I was born in. I was born in Lambeth hospital which was on Brook drive (
area behind the leisure centre) Photos on this site

Lambeth hospital link

and the area features in this video and the hospital is still standing at this time) ( as well as spotting it in a Harry Potter film)

 

[JohnnyOrange]

I need more elephant and castle pictures!

https://dvd.easycinema.com/visitor/product_detail.html?product_id=89296

Are you sure?

 

[boohoo]

I vaguely remember that programme- doesn't really sell the place does it...

 

[teuchter]

I have 1930s A-z type thing which I could lend you if you are nice to it...

Do you have a scanner?

 

[cybertect]

No need. It's online on the A-Z site, google maps style.

http://www.a-zmaps.co.uk/?nid=383

(and you can buy a reprint edition if you really want one)

 

[teuchter]

No need. It's online on the A-Z site, google maps style.

http://www.a-zmaps.co.uk/?nid=383

(and you can buy a reprint edition if you really want one)

That's handy to know about.

Would be nice to see something a bit larger-scale though.

 

[cybertect]

An OS 1:5000 would be nice, I'd agree.

 

[lang rabbie]

£47.95 on Amazon for a used copy of the reprint of the map that normally sells for £2.25

 

[lang rabbie]

Elephant & Castle on Booth's poverty map of 1898-99

 

[Etymologist]

Elephant & Castle on Booth's poverty map of 1898-99

Fascinating. So "Middle class. Well-to-do" people lived in houses on the site of what is now the south roundabout.

 

[Etymologist]

Because it isn't a reference to the Elephant & Castle.



ETA ... BUT of course, now that we are all post-structuralists, we have to say that the author's intentions count for nothing and the reader views are what's count.

(i) So for me, being a bit of a sucker for historical materialist aesthetic theory, I go looking for some parallel historical sources at the time of composition:




(ii) But if Spion really, really wants Shakespeare to have meant the Elephant & Castle, even though there was only a farriers in the middle of a field there in his day, then post-stucturally-speaking that is the truth.

Wonderful, thanks for clearing that up. I better email Michael Quinion and tell him he's wrong (or at least, that he's a post structuralist, in case he is unaware):

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-sub1.htm

 

[kyser_soze]

I assume by 'character' on this thread people mean 'atmosphere of despair and desparation', because that's the only feeling I've ever got going in there.

 

[lang rabbie]

Wonderful, thanks for clearing that up. I better email Michael Quinion and tell him he's wrong (or at least, that he's a post structuralist, in case he is unaware):

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-sub1.htm

I spotted that howler a couple of years ago, when engaged in online debate elsewhere on the earliest use of suburb.

However, I thought I was already too much at risk of turning into a parodic, pedantic Stephen Fry sound-alike and desisted from public derision of Mr Quinion's knowledge of 16th century South London geography.

He is otherwise a gentleman, scholar and cidermaker.

 

[pk]

a place where you could see a whole slice of modern urban Britain in one place and realise that if left alone it might just work out ok.

That's an astoundingly accurate reflection of how I feel about E&C too.

 

[Etymologist]

I spotted that howler a couple of years ago, when engaged in online debate elsewhere on the earliest use of suburb.

However, I thought I was already too much at risk of turning into a parodic, pedantic Stephen Fry sound-alike and desisted from public derision of Mr Quinion's knowledge of 16th century South London geography.

He is otherwise a gentleman, scholar and cidermaker.

Quinion is indeed a fine specimen and much respected. I couldn't help it though. I had to wax pedantic. I emailed him. I hope he wasn't offended. I just can't stand by and have an error like that gracing his marvellous website. I'd lose sleep over it. He responded saying he'd look into it when time allows.

 

[teuchter]

There aren't many British shopping centres with interior decoration like this...

I'd like to take more pictures of the interior before it disappears. I'm wondering how long I'd last before an officious security guard asked me what I'm up to.

 

[Etymologist]

Nice photos. Do do more.