Editing Kennington (section)

===20th-century history===
[[File:Kennington War Memorial, Kennington Park, London SE11 - geograph.org.uk - 391636.jpg|thumb|Kennington War Memorial]]
Two social forces were at work in Kennington at different times during the twentieth century: decline, and&nbsp;– later&nbsp;– gentrification. Decline began in the early part of the twentieth century. Middle-class households ceased to employ servants and no longer sought the large houses of Kennington, preferring the suburbs of outer London. Houses in Kennington were suited to multiple occupation and were divided into flats and bedsits, providing cheap lodgings for lower-paid workers.

Kennington ceased to be the administrative centre for the [[Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth]] (as it then was) in 1908. The [[Old Town Hall, Kennington Road|Old Town Hall]], built on Kennington Road as a vestry hall for the local parish, was not large enough for the Council to properly carry out its functions and a new town hall was built in Brixton. The Old Town Hall was the registered office of the [[Countryside Alliance]] until September 2015.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05669451/filing-history|title = THE COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE FOUNDATION - Filing history (Free information from Companies House)}}</ref>

In 1913, [[Maud Pember Reeves]] selected Kennington for ''[[Round About a Pound a Week]]'', which was a survey of social conditions in the district. She found "respectable but very poor people [who] live over a morass of such intolerable poverty that they unite instinctively to save those known to them from falling into it".<ref>Mrs Pember Reeves, "Round About a Pound a Week", London, G. Bell and Sons, pp. 39–40</ref>

[[File:Courtenay Square - geograph.org.uk - 1182357.jpg|thumb|Courtenay Square was part of the Duchy of Cornwall's major redevelopment of part of the district in the early twentieth century.]]
In an initiative to improve the district, from 1915, the Duchy of Cornwall set about an ambitious project to redevelop land. Courtenay Square, Courtenay Street, Cardigan Street, Denny Street and Denny Crescent were laid out to a design by architects [[Stanley Adshead|Stanley Davenport Adshead]], [[Stanley Ramsey|Stanley Churchill Ramsay]] and JD Coleridge, in a Neo-Georgian style.

In 1922, Lambeth Hospital on Brook Drive was created from a former workhouse. Under the control of the London County Council, Lambeth Hospital, which had a capacity of 1,250 patients in 1939, was one of the largest hospitals in London. After the [[National Health Service]] was formed, Lambeth Hospital became an acute general hospital. In 1976, the North Wing of St. Thomas' Hospital opened; services transferred there, and Lambeth Hospital was closed. A substantial part of the site has today been redeveloped for apartments, although some buildings are occupied by the Lambeth Community Care Centre.

Kennington station was substantially remodelled in 1925 to accommodate the Charing Cross branch of the [[Northern line]] along with the improvements to the [[City and South London Railway]] to form the [[Northern line]]. Because tram and bus routes converged at Kennington, in the 1920s St. Mark's became known as the "tramwayman's church", and Kennington was referred to as the "[[Clapham Junction (area)|Clapham Junction]] of the southern roads".<ref>See [2]</ref>

By 1926, construction of the [[Belgrave Hospital for Children]], designed by [[Henry Percy Adams (architect)|Henry Percy Adams]] and [[Charles Holden]], was complete. The hospital was subsumed within the King's College Hospital Group and closed in 1985. It was restored and converted to apartments in 1994.

In the 1930s, the Duchy of Cornwall continued to redevelop its estate in the district and employed architect [[Louis de Soissons]] to design a number of buildings in a Neo-Georgian style.

On 15 October 1940, the large trench [[air-raid shelter]] beneath Kennington Park was struck by a 50&nbsp;lb bomb. The number of people killed remains unknown; it is believed by local historians that 104 people died. Forty-eight bodies were recovered.

The [[Brandon Estate]] was endowed in 1962 by the London County Council with ''Reclining Figure No. 3'': a sculpture by [[Henry Moore]].

[[St Agnes Place]] was a street of mid-Victorian terraces built for the servants of [[Buckingham Palace]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Douglas Rogers |url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/dec/01/g2 |title=Eight years in St Agnes Place &#124; Society |work=The Guardian |date=1 December 2005 |access-date=15 August 2013 |location=London |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002204530/http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/dec/01/g2 |archive-date=2 October 2013  }}</ref> Lambeth Council had decided to demolish the street to extend Kennington Park and the houses were empty by the late 1960s. In 1969, squatters moved into one of the houses and later entered the other empty properties and established a Rastafari temple. The street became London's longest-running squat. From 1977, Lambeth Council sought to evict the squatters and eventually succeeded at the High Court in 2005. The houses and the temple were declared to be unfit for human habitation and were pulled down in 2007. The Kennington Park Extension now covers much of the site.

Lambeth Council designated much of Kennington a [[Conservation Area]] in 1968, the boundary of which was extended in 1979 and in 1997. Lambeth Council's emphasis on conserving and protecting Kennington's architectural heritage and enhancing its attractive open spaces for recreation and leisure is illustrated by restoration of the centre of the listed Cleaver Square in the last decade of the twentieth century. Originally grassed over in the 1790s, the centre of Cleaver Square had by the 1870s become a garden circumscribed by a formal path, but by 1898 it had been cultivated as a nursery with greenhouses. In 1927 the centre of Cleaver Square was acquired by the London County Council to forestall a proposal to build on it, and more trees were then planted and the garden was gravelled over as a recreation ground. During the war years, in particular, the recreation area became somewhat derelict but during the 1950s Cleaver Square's inherent charm was recognised anew and its fortunes once more began to rise. In 1995, Lambeth Council resolved, with the backing of English Heritage, a grant from the [[Heritage Lottery Fund]], and donations from residents of [[Cleaver Square]], to restore the centre of the square to provide once again an attractive and peaceful public space for the people of Kennington.<ref>Cliff Baylis CB, Chairman of the Cleaver Square Residents' Association from 1993 to his death in 1998, was instrumental in ensuring this initiative became a reality.</ref> In the summer months many people from Kennington and further afield play [[pétanque]] in the centre of the square.