Oval Mansions are eight separate blocks of

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

housing in

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...

, south London. The blocks stand between the Oval cricket ground and

the Oval Gasholders The Oval Gasholders is the unofficial name given to the gas holder (gasometer) located near The Oval cricket stadium in London, England. Construction began in 1853 and the site is officially called Kennington Holder Station by its owners, Southe ...

. After being occupied by one hundred

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

from 1983 until 2000 (notable residents including

Ian Dury Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 27 March 2000) was a British singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Ian Dury and the Blockheads an ...

Gillian Wearing Gillian Wearing CBE, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English conceptual artist, one of the Young British Artists, and winner of the 1997 Turner Prize. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He ...

and

Ben Myers Benjamin Myers (born January 1976) is an English writer and journalist. Early life Myers grew up in Belmont, County Durham, and was a pupil at the estate's local comprehensive school where he become interested in reading and skateboarding. M ...

), the buildings were sold off by

Lambeth Council Lambeth London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lambeth in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, and one of the 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council meets at Lambeth Town Hall ...

in the early 2000s.

Construction

The eight blocks of the Oval Mansions were built as

housing in the 1890s. The original inhabitants were nurses and employees at the nearby gasworks. Some of four-storey blocks overlook the Oval cricket ground, and it is possible to watch cricket from the roof. The blocks were closed in 1979 by order of the new owner,

, since they were becoming unsafe; they had wooden stairs and no

fire escape A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency th ...

s. The council had bought the mainly uninhabited site from the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

Squatted

Most of the empty buildings were

squatted Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

from January 1983 onwards. Blocks 1, 3 and 4 were occupied in 1983, blocks 2 and 7 in 1984 and blocks 6 and 8 in 1985. The council having forgotten about them, the squatters renovated and repaired the apartments, living there in a community of approximately 100 people. Notable residents included the singer

, artists

and

Fiona Banner Fiona Banner (born 1966), also known as The Vanity Press is a British artist. Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, installation and text, and demonstrates a long-standing fascination with the emblem of fighter aircraft and their role within cul ...

, writer

and musicians

Pan Sonic Pan Sonic was a Finnish electronic music group founded in Turku in 1993. The group consisted of Mika Vainio, Ilpo Väisänen, and Sami Salo. Salo left in 1996 leaving Pan Sonic a duo. The group was originally named Panasonic until 1998. In Dec ...

. Between 1988 and 1998, squatters set up and ran the

City Racing City Racing was a squatted artist-run space in Oval Mansions, Kennington, South London which was active between 1988 and 1998. It was a cooperative by five artists Matt Hale, Paul Noble, John Burgess, Keith Coventry and Peter Owen. They ...

art gallery in a former betting shop on the ground floor. The gallery exhibited the work of

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

such as

Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects. ...

and Gillian Wearing, selling three Lucas artworks to Charles Saatchi. The community also ran a film club and tended shared gardens.

Eviction

By the late 1990s, Lambeth Council had realised the increasing monetary value of the apartments and issued eviction proceedings in 1997. The squatters were offered social housing elsewhere, which some took, but others contested the eviction process, arguing that they were entitled to

adverse possession Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Common law, Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have title (property), legal title to a piece of property—usuall ...

since they had lived there as a community for over twelve years. Thirty-two squatters made their case in court, and six apartments successfully gained ownership. Judge Cooke decided that another fifty-three squats had not proven their case, with one extra still in dispute. The squatters took their case to the Court of Appeal, claiming that they had acquired title by virtue of joint possession. The appeal was rejected in December 2000. By 2003, Lambeth Council had sold the majority of the Oval Mansions for million. As of 2015, a penthouse apartment could be rented for per week and in 2017, a two-bed apartment sold for .

References

{{Authority control Former squats Squats in the United Kingdom 1890s establishments in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth The Oval Kennington History of the London Borough of Lambeth

Construction

Squatted

Eviction

See also

References