Coordinates: 51°28′53″N 0°07′11″W / 51.4813°N 0.1197°W / 51.4813; -0.1197

Kennington
Kennington  Kennington shown within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ305775
London borough	Lambeth
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	SE11
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
UK Parliament	Vauxhall
London Assembly	Lambeth and Southwark
List of places: UK • England • London

Kennington is an area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a mixed class residential area, and is the location of the The Oval, the well-known cricket stadium.

Kennington appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Chenintune. It was held by Teodric (Theodoric) the Goldsmith. It rendered: 1 hide and 3 virgates; 3 ploughs, 4 acres (16,000 m²) of meadow. It rendered £3.^[1]

Chartist meeting on Kennington Common in 1848.

Edward III gave the manor of Kennington to his oldest son Edward "the Black Prince" in 1337, and the prince then built a large royal palace between what is now Black Prince Road and Sancroft Street. Geoffrey Chaucer was employed at Kennington as Clerk of Works in 1389. He was paid 2 shillings. Much of this area of Kennington continues to be owned by the current monarch's elder son (HRH Princes of Wales, Duke of Cornwall - see Dukes of Cornwall ) to the present day.

Kennington Park (laid out by Victorian architect James Pennethorne) and St Mark's Churchyard now cover the site of Kennington Common. In 1746 the Surrey County Gallows at the southern end of the common was used for the execution of nine leaders of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The Common was also where the Chartists gathered for their biggest demonstration in 1848. "The Gymnastic Society" met regularly at Kennington Common during the second half of the eighteenth century to play football^[2] The Society - arguably the world's first Football club - consisted of London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

(Fuller details of the Common's history are in the Kennington Park article.)

Kennington Park Road and Clapham Road is a long and straight stretch of road because it follows the old Roman Stane Street. This ran down from the Roman London Bridge to Chichester via the gap in the North Downs at Box Hill near Dorking. Another Roman road branched off opposite Kennington Road and went down through what is now Kennington Park and down the Brixton Road. It carried on through the North Downs near Caterham to Hassocks, just north of the South Downs.

Cactus TV, which used to produce the Richard & Judy programme, is in Kennington Road.

Nearest places:

• Vauxhall
• Walworth
• Newington — usually known as Elephant and Castle
• Stockwell
• Camberwell

Nearest tube stations:

• Kennington tube station
• Oval tube station

[edit] References

1. ^ Surrey Domesday Book
2. ^ Football The First Hundred Years: The Untold Story by Adrian Harvey, Routledge 2005, page 54

[edit] External links

• Vauxhall Society — Executions on Kennington Common
• Vauxhall, Kennington and the Oval — community website

v • d • e London Borough of Lambeth Districts Brixton · Clapham · Crystal Palace · Gipsy Hill · Herne Hill · Kennington · Lambeth · Oval · Stockwell · Streatham · Streatham Hill · Tulse Hill · Vauxhall · Waterloo · West Dulwich · West Norwood Attractions Imperial War Museum · Lambeth Palace · London Eye · Oval Cricket Ground  · Southbank Centre (Royal National Theatre • BFI Southbank • Royal Festival Hall • Queen Elizabeth Hall • Purcell Room • Hayward) Bridges Waterloo · Hungerford · Lambeth · Westminster · Vauxhall Constituencies Streatham · Vauxhall · Dulwich and West Norwood Parks and open spaces in Lambeth