Walking Tour - Stealing the Common from the Goose: Kennington Enclosed

This walk in southern Kennington (including Oval and Vauxhall) looks at open spaces — greens, gardens, parks and sporting grounds.

The Chartists held their last big rally on Kennington Common in April of 1848, part of the Springtime of the Peoples that swept Europe, when working people demanded democracy in the form of practices like universal suffrage and the secret ballot. The Chartist movement had been growing for a decade all over the country, and after the 1848 rally a petition with millions of signatures was delivered to Parliament, just across the Thames.

Early daguerreotype-photos show a solid mass of people gathered to listen to speakers. So many came to the demonstration that the powers-that-be, fearing a revolution, moved quickly to enclose the common to obstruct further meetings. Kennington Park occupies part of what was the common, as do a church, a stadium and many houses.

St Mark’s Church stands on a former gallows —the Tyburn of South London. Here Jamaican/British radical Robert Wedderburn, a former slave, preached for abolition of slavery, property rights and revolution.

Some well-known community campaigns and court battles have taken place here for squatters’ rights and who gets to use or buy open spaces. We see two inspiring community gardens as well as one laid out by the first female professional landscape gardener, Fanny Wilkinson.

The title of the walk comes from an old rhyme:

The law condemns the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common, but lets the greater villain loose who steals the common from the goose

Laura Agustín is an historian and anthropologist interested in illuminating the lives of unnamed people in history. is Laura's longtime blog, now dedicated to historical walks that highlight issues of Gender, Sex and Class.

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Host or Publisher Laura Agustín, Footprints of London