Tag: Vauxhall

121 and 123 Tyers Street, Vauxhall, SE11 5HS

This is an interesting terrace, just to the East of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.

121 and 123 Tyers Street, SE11 5HS, sketched 17 April 2025 in Sketchbook 15

The terrace house on the left has a terracotta plaque let into the brickwork:

A HOUSE FOR NICARAGUA
Built 1984-91 to celebrate 
the Nicaraguan Revolution  
Sold to support community projects in Nicaragua

The website “Radical Lambeth” has an article which tells more. The house was restored as a community endeavour, led by a visionary, Ron Tod (sometimes spelled Todd):

“He had some money from a house he had built out of an old airfield shed in Essex, and he thought some of the people he was living with might help with the work. About 200 people – men and women in their twenties and thirties did…”

“Almost all the materials for 121 Tyers Street came from skips, building sites or dumps. The floors are parquet, retrieved in one great haul from a skip….”

Even from the outside, the house is feels beautiful. The windows are all different, and there is intriguing detail, such as the terracotta frieze above the window shown in my picture. This is a house built to a loose design rather than a rigid plan. Much was created by the people there, as they went along, using materials to hand. Sketching it, I was reminded of the work of the 1970s radical architect Christopher Alexander, “A Pattern Language”.

The house in the centre of my picture is 123 Tyers Street. This is much plainer. But it also is intriguing. The lower windows are not directly below the upper windows, but shifted right.

I sketched sitting on the wall opposite.

Sketchbook spread, Sketchbook 15

Vauxhall Tea House Theatre, SE11

The Vauxhall Tea House Theatre is one on my favourite places. It is a “tea house by day, theatre by night”. Here is a sketch of the outside:

Vauxhall Tea House Theatre, 12″ x 9″ pen and wash original. [sold]

Here is a sketch of the interior by day:

Vauxhall Tea House Theatre, interior with cat. 12″ x 9″ pen and wash original. [Sold]

There are winged chairs you can sink into, wooden tables you can work at, magazines and newspapers you can read. There is tea. There is cake. There is at least one cat.

It’s a short walk from Vauxhall station. Definitely worth a visit.

Above is from their Summer 2024 programme.

From the Tea House Theatre website:

“We are trying to be different. We will not hurry you. If you visit us on your lunch break, then have one, you will be more productive in the afternoon. If you want to have a meeting, we will not disturb you. If you are ‘working from home’, we have wifi. If you have children, we have highchairs, a chest of toys, and milkshakes. We always have the daily papers, so please, relax, and share in what we are trying to create, take a load off, and have a cuppa.”

Magnificent!

Vauxhall Tea House Theatre SE11

Here is a civilised place in London. It’s the Vauxhall Tea House Theatre.

This is a picture I sketched there last week:

Vauxhall Tea House – 2:30pm 7 March 2024, in sketchbook 14

The tea I drank was their “Russian Smoky Tea”.

I’ve visited the Tea House many times. Here is an outside view from June 2022

Tea House Theatre, external view, June 2022 in Sketchbook 12

They have all sorts of theatrical events on their tiny stage. I enjoy “Don’t Go Into The Dungeon” where talented actor Jonathan Goodwin plays all of the characters to amazing effect. He specialises in Victorian mysteries. The next one is “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. Dinner is served before the performance. With scones for dessert.

Here’s where it is, just a 5 minute walk from Vauxhall Station.

And in more detail:

Here’s my sketchbook page:

Sketchbook 14

Sketching in Kennington and Vauxhall

In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens there is a strange geometric building. I drew it, sitting on the grass.

IMG_1863

There is a tiny sign on the Tyers Street side of the building which says “Cabinet”. We saw someone come out. They said, “It’s an art gallery, you should check it out!” We pushed the door and went inside. There is indeed an art gallery on the ground floor. Currently it is showing an exhibition of the notebooks and sketches of Antonin Artaud: “Cahiers de Rodez at d’Ivey 1945-48”. Rodez was or is a mental asylum.

“An unclassifiable volume of writing and drawing. Portraits, names, calculations, glossolalia, sigils, lists and drugs and foodstuffs, formulae, totems, lexicons, anatomies, objects, […] machines and implements of obscure purpose” (curation, 132 Tyers Street SE11 5HS)

We asked the receptionist what the building was. It was designed by Trevor Horne Architects. It is financed by Charles Asprey. There is a gallery on the ground floor. On the top floor there is a “project space”. In between there are two “residential floors”. The tiles on ground floor were identical to the tiles on the Barbican Podium, but newer. The walls were unfinished concrete inside, with pleasing concave curves.

Charles Asprey has many interests.

“CHARLES ASPREY is a publisher and arts patron. He runs an exhibition space in an award-winning building he commissioned on the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. He is co-editor of the arts quarterly PICPUS and Chair of the Grants Committee of the Henry Moore Foundation. “

He is also an initiator of the “London Fountain Co.” which aims to provide fresh drinking water in London “helping to provide the infrastructure needed to move away from plastic bottled water”. The quote about Charles Asprey, above, comes from the London Fountain Co. website.

The windows of the building have “A” shaped frames:

My sketches of the windows
Tyers St Motif downloaded from Charles Asprey website

A for Asprey.

Off to the right of the picture is Vauxhall City Farm. The Christian cross you see to the left of Asprey’s building is on top of the “All Nations Apostolic Church” on Tyers Terrace. The neat house on the far left is 127 Tyers Street. It is now residential, a fine conversion of a row of shops.

In the far distance you see the tower blocks round Elephant and Castle.

Here is work in progress on the picture. It took about 1hr45min.

Then I walked along Tyers Street and towards Waterloo.

IMG_1862

This is a view from outside “Mountain House”, a 1930’s block on Tyers Street.

You see Arden House on the right. The huge modern block is “Parliament House Apartments”, which is on Black Prince Road on the North side of the railway tracks. In the middle is a row of 1970s houses, odd numbers 1-21 Vauxhall Walk.

This was a really quick sketch: about 15 mins, drawn and coloured on the narrow pavement outside Mountain House.

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