Kennington Road, London

If you’re visiting London and have had your fill of the usual tourist attractions, then head to Kennington Road where you’ll find the site of a gory murder, the childhood home of Charlie Chaplin, a war museum, a one-time residence of Vincent van Gogh and an excellent pub serving meals using British seasonal ingredients.

Let’s start with the pub, always a good place to begin.

The Three Stags at 67 – 69 Kennington Road is a place with a history but also a great venue to meet friends, enjoy a drink or two and indulge in a great meal – which, the owners assure us, is made of locally-sourced, organic ingredients. It’s a pub with a conscience.

In fact, there’s a notice on their website at the moment that reads “In homage to the rainforests, The Three Stags have decided to no longer serve beef.” You won’t miss it, not when there are items like Pan-Roasted Hake with Swede and Potato Cake, Braised Fennel, Poached Egg and Hollandaise, followed by Sticky Toffee Pudding.

And talking about homage, in homage to former Kennington Road resident Charlie Chaplin, there’s a Chaplin Room is the pub. When Chaplin lived here as a boy, the area was full of music halls and places of entertainment which is how he came to be living in the neighbourhood – both his parents were music hall entertainers.

Just opposite the pub you’ll see a rather imposing building with, incongruously, two huge naval guns pointing ominously out from the undergrowth. This is the Imperial War Museum and it’s worth setting aside a day, if not a good few hours, in order to make the most of your visit there.

A little trivia – the museum building was formerly the Bethlem Royal Hospital, from which we get the word ‘bedlam’.

As mentioned, Vincent van Gogh lived in Kennington Road for a time at number 395 and number 126 was the scene of a grisly gangland murder in 1985. (All these landmarks are noted on the map below).

The victim was a well-known south London villain who was murdered in his bed one night. Nobody quite knows why although in the last century gangster murders weren’t unknown in the area. The murderers were never found and the perpetrators remain unknown.

Kennington Road is just another London thoroughfare but like so many, it has its own little quirks and odd history.

Here are some useful links:

The Imperial War Museum

The Three Stags

Charlie Chaplin’s Early Life

Brian ‘Little Legs’ Clifford