Traffic accident in Elephant and Castle and accident in Kennington

Post edited to reflect new information as of 9/4/2009:

I've had quite a few hits on my blog today and last night from people searching for the phrase "accident in Kennington".

I assumed at first that people were looking for information about the accident which occurred on the Elephant and Castle roundabout, and in which, tragically, a female cyclist was killed. London-SE1 has an article on that accident, and police are asking for witnesses. The Evening Standard has a more detailed report, which gives witness reports that the cyclist was trapped between an articulated lorry and iron railings.

However, it seems that there were two accidents on 8th April in the area, and (according to Twitter), a second accident occurred in SE11, on Kennington Road just in front of the Texaco garage at about 17:30. The accident in Kennington Road /also/ required an air ambulance and a commentator today noted that the helicopter landed on Lambeth Walk Open Space. Stockwell News has noted reports in the South London Press that the victim was a 14 year old male cyclist.

This is probably why reports of traffic chaos around Kennington/Elephant today were prolific.

Very exciting - Google Streetview is live for London

I'm very excited... I've been waiting for this day for a few months. Google have finally gone live with their Streetview facility for London. I think that the SE11 photos were taken around July/August 2008. Let's take a quick tour around SE11:

Firstly, the assault course on Kennington Park on a lovely sunny day;



A trip to Cleaver Square. No boules as I presume it's midday on a weekday:



A quick visit to St Peter's church:



Before we nip into Chariots!:



Phhew, thirsty work! Time to visit the Dog House:



Let's go and get some exercise on Lambeth Walk Open Space:



And finally, how about doing the Lambeth Walk?



Sadly, there are a few "strategically" placed buses (I'm presuming accidentally, but who knows?) which means that a number of views around SE11 are missed. However, I've managed to find one of the slipway ramp next to MI6 that the photographers were caught on during (mentioned yesterday):



Fantastic!

A secret pub - The Royal Oak - (the other one)

I have plenty of exciting updates from this weekend, including the North Lambeth Parish Fete (including a few photos). See, it is possible to attend a different SE11 fete or festival related event each week during the summer. What other postcode can boast such attractions? I'll try to post pictures when I return from work this evening.

This post, however, is on another matter. You should see from the top map that all of the pink markers represent pubs (or clubs) in SE11. There are still a few question marks where I actually need to check whether pubs still exist or their exact names. However, when I formed the map, I referred to Google, a couple of "pub" sites and my own knowledge. I suspected that there was a pub on Fitzalan Street because I was sure I'd walked past it, but I couldn't find anything on Google... Here's my guess as to why....

The Fitazalan Street pub (Kennington) is named "The Royal Oak", exactly the same as the Kennington Lane pub (Vauxhall), which is much better known. I have now added this pub to the top map, but there is surprisingly little information about it. An old blog post by somebody who visited at the end of 2007, last year. There's a mention on the (now apparently defunct) blog of Lambeth Walk Open Space (which the pub looks over), and what might be a number of very old descriptions. It looks like a very comfortable pub, full of locals from the surrounding estates, but I will try to pop in at some stage. Whenever I've walked past, there are always people happily drinking outside. Does anybody have any furthur information?