Larkhall Park: The Stockwell Festival
Unless you live next to Larkhall Park, you may not know that it is about to play host to Stockwell festival on Saturday. Slightly in the shadow of south London’s louder Brixton Splash and Lambeth Country Show, this fun little festival has tonnes to make it a day full of fun and we have an itinerary of the things not to be missed this year.
Cycle to the festival for 11.30 and wake up with a coffee from the Karu Coffee van, en route to the guys at Cycle PS who will service your bike for free. If you’ve young’uns in tow, take them to get crafty with Heart in Art workshops. Feeling peckish? Tuck into a plate of paella from sorely missed Rebatos, much missed since closing their restaurant last February but still cooking their legendary Spanish food at festivals. Treat yourself to an ice cream from Surrey Ices, pictured above, for pud. Carry on the cycling theme and work off lunch by making your own healthy smoothie by riding a bike.
Finish the day with a beer from The Priory Arms beer tent and watch the colourful acts on stage, including The Cracked, humorously described as “Santana with out Carlos” and the headliners Grupo Lokito, a Congolese and latin fusion band.
Best of the rest
London Bridge: Dinner From Our Back Garden
A freshly harvested two-course dinner and a home-made garden cocktail for £12.50*? Yep – if you’re quick and get your ticket for this year’s Melior Street community garden dinner event.
Local SE1 restaurant, the Table Cafe, is creating tempting dishes including slow-braised, short rib burger with home pickled gherkins and “just-picked” rocket; broad bean, chive and puy lentil burger with sour cream; “allotment pavlova” made with the day’s berry harvest – and the boozy welcome drink of elderflower, mint and gin. There’s a feel-good factor too: the fresh produce is all provided by St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots, a horticultural training programme run by the homelessness charity from the Melior Street allotment. The event is part of Urban Food Fortnight, more about which we will soon sharing.
*Plus booking fee Street garden al fresco dinner, 19 September 6.30pm-9.30pm, Melior Street, SE1. Book your tickets via Eventbrite
Happy snapper digital cameras, made for selfies have saturated the photography market of late – but why not check out how it used to be done?
The first London Analogue Festival 2013: Retro on the Cutting Edge is a two-day festival celebrating analogue photography, film and music. Fancy seeing how to do those Instagram filters but for real? International artists will be exhibiting their photography, film and sound art, alongside talks, screenings and various chances to get involved and revisit – or discover – the charm of that lovely warm and crackly old analogue technology. The events are across three venues: the Amersham Arms, The Old Police Station and Deptford Town Hall. And it’s all totally free.
Saturday 7 (from 10.30am)-Sunday 8 September (from 11am) 2013. Londonanalogue.com or @londonanalogue for full listings.
Interested in an animation workshop? Or perhaps you’d rather hop on a bike and pedal power your way through Edward Scissorhands?
Then head down to one of the 30 free film based events run by the Peckham and Nunhead Free Film Festival organisation. It was set up in 2010 by a community group formed to promote free film screenings in interesting neighbourhood venues. The programme? Think Chaplin and Keaton with live piano soundtrack on the Rye, or an outdoor screening of Wreck-it-Ralph in Calypso Crescent, alongside Q&As for the mega film buffs and creative Manga workshops. The FFF have got a line up to satisfy everyone.
30 events. 5-15 September in Peckham and Nunhead. Go to the website to see the full programme. All events free. Freefilmfestivals.org
Various: free cash available for local projects
It’s a PR stunt for a battery brand, and so we wouldn’t usually – but it’s all about boosting local communities, so go on then. Energizer is giving away wads of £500 for all sorts of local projects – from fixing your elderly neighbour’s garden up to sprucing up a local youth centre or hosting a locals’ film night.
To be in with a chance of nabbing some of the cash, upload an Instagram photo of the proposed project to Twitter of Facebook, with a brief description of the idea, using the hashtag #RechargeMyCommunity
Words: Sarah Fox and Kate Burt
Do you have a local event you’d like us to write about? Email info@belowtheriver.co.uk
