Today’s lunchtime walk took me to the Elephant & Castle. When I lived in SE London I used to drive past it a lot, on my way to visit friends at Waterloo or just to go ‘up West’ but I had only ever been there on foot once before. It was not a happy experience as the place seemed very shabby and run down and now, at least ten years later, it seems to have got even worse.

Outside there is a thriving market. Lots of clothes stalls, a couple of hat stalls, the ubiquitous mobile phone accessory and unlocking stall, a couple of stalls selling Nigerian movies, etc. Lots of England merchandise obviously. Inside though… it is hard to describe. In a way it is refreshing to see an indoor shopping centre which is not identical to every other one in the country, and is not full of the same chain stores, but its a shame that it does it all with the ambience of the duty free shops in Bombay airport in 1988.

There is a very large cafe in there though. I imagine most shopping centres had one in the 60s or 70s but now they all have ‘food courts’ instead. Of course, the shopping centre is on the edge of an extremely deprived area, and it shows. The pity is that shopping centres or malls have to either be bland and indistinguishable from each other, having no individual character at all, or they do have character – but the character is Fagin.

I noticed that the printing college over the road is now a university of design and the Sounthbank Poly round the corner is now the University of the Southbank. At least the Elephant & Castle shopping centre has resisted such gentrification attempts. It may be a bit of a shit-hole but its an honest one. I think I will stick with Lower Marsh market though.

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