'Next stop is Queens Road '- aya's Hexed! is Quietus & Wire album of the year

First day back at work yesterday after the Christmas break, and a nice moment of synchronicity. As is my wont at this season I have been working my way through various lists of the best albums of the last year. Number one on the Quietus list for 2025 is aya's Hexed! on Hyperdub, with Claire Dibbles describing the artist 'as a master of sound design, functioning as both a storytelling tool and as a descriptor of emotion'. The album is also no.1 on the Wire magazine's end of year list.

Listening to the track 'off to the ESSO' my ears pricked up at the line 'next stop is Queens Road' as I was just approaching Queens Road Peckham station. OK other Queens Roads are available, but as aya apparently has a studio in Peckham I'm going to take this an SE15 reference

As for the album, it certainly woke me up on a wintry Monday morning. Check out this interesting interview with aya at Fader which describes her 'uncanny, abrasive collages' and the album's 'bewildering journey through pummelling electronic noise'.

aya on the cover of The Wire, May 2025

Ikonika also has a new album out - SAD - on Hyperdub by the way, which puts me in mind of one of my favourite Transpontine posts, from 2013 - the story of Ikonika, Katy B and Ayre's Nunhead bakers.

Last days of Peckham Rye Station Arcade

The Arcade in front of Peckham Rye station is empty and awaiting demolition - in fact signs around the site say that it demolition was due to start in summer 2025.

The two-storey building was built in around 1935 to occupy the square in front of the Victorian train station. It was designed by Scottish architect John James Joass who was also responsible for some of the buildings at London Zoo and for Whiteley's department store in Bayswater. Its demolition is part of a plan to reinstate the original square, so that the grand main station building can be seen from Rye Lane (architect's impression below). 

I can't say the Arcade has particularly happy memories for me, the many hours I spent there were mainly in the dentists chair, though there were some really nice dentists there over the years.  Others have had more pleasant experiences, including in recent years some great soul and jazz nights at the CLF Art Cafe & Roof Garden upstairs.

'Brotherhood of Breath' at CLF Arts Cafe, Station Way in 2022

While I might not be going to the barricades to save it, I think in its final days we can certainly celebrate its features and history. There is a faded art deco grandeur to the place and in its current state of graffiti'd dereliction it is the classic example of a kind of early 21st century Peckham grime that is gradually being cleaned up and swept away.

In its earlier life the Station Arcade hosted an Irish dance hall, the Brian Boru Social Club, in the late 1930s:

James Power was the proprietor of the Brian Boru Social Club

During the Second World War the Camberwell district of the Young Communist League had its HQ at 1a Station Approach 

Stalin was right say the YCL in 1943! At this time of course, the USSR was a key ally in the war against Hitler, so such praise was not that unusual in Britain at the time.

'Young Communists' Talent Contest', South London Observer, 23 April 1943

After the war the London County Council ran one of its Civic Restaurants there, one of a chain aiming to offer affordable food. With Jenny's cafe in the arcade in its later years, many thousands of meals must have been eaten in the arcade, and many cups of tea drunk.

Southwark against racism and apartheid - 1970s/80s

SCARF (Southwark Campaign Against Racialism and Fascism was set up in late 1970s to do what it said on the tin. At one time it was based at 136 Lordship Lane SE22

As well as fighting against far right organisations in the UK such as the National Front, it was also linked to international anti-racist campaigns, notably the Anti-Apartheid Movement. A Southwark branch of AAM was set up in 1978 and as reported in this SCARF newsletter held meetings at Bookplace, 13 Peckham High Street (a community bookshop):

This Southwark Against Apartheid benefit gig took place at North Peckham Civic Centre on the Old Kent Road, with acts including ska band Potato 5, One Style, Luddy Samms, Attaco Decente, and Clea & McLeod (I think this must have been in 1987 as May 22nd fell on a Friday that year).

(with the exception of the Bookplace photo these images were included in a Black History Month exhibition at Southwark Council's Tooley St HQ in October 2025)

See previously:

No Nazis in East Street - SCARF 1979

Hitler hanged and burned: VE Day in South London 1945

The end of war in Europe was celebrated with several days of relieved VE (Victory in Europe) celebrations across Britain in May 1945. In South London as in many other areas this includes bonfires, parties and singing in the streets. On the Old Kent Road there were 'groups of people singing round pianos on the pavements'; on Rye Lane, Peckham sailors rode on the top of double decker buses; hundreds gathered at One Tree Hill.

During the events 'scores of effigies of Hitler were burned' while it was reported that in Artichoke Place, Camberwell 'another Hitler dummy is swinging from a gas lamp with a noose around his neck' (South London Observer, 11 May 1945)

 

South London Street Signs

 Time for another round up of messages from the streets, lampposts and toilet doors of South London, most of these spotted around New Cross/Brockley/Nunhead in last 6 months.

Unequivocal Safe Space statement in Old Nun's Head.

New Cross, near to Goldsmiths (painted mural)

Robert Smith of The Cure in Dash the Henge record shop in Camberwell
 - 'Charlotte Sometimes, Always Anti-Fascist'

Dash the Henge - 'Millwall Communist Party'

Insurrectionary anarchists busy in Deptford, next to tunnel to Fordham Park SE14 'TFL raise fares... let's raise hell'

'Brockley Anarchist Reading Club' meeting up at Skehans

'Free Luigi Mangione' in Camberwell

Toilet doors in the New Cross Inn always a treasure trove of sticker art:

Only Tears on Old Kent Road

SE15SK8 sticker on Gellatly Road sign, SE14

Palestine still rightly getting attention - these stickers proclaiming 'long live Gaza' and 'Free Palestine'-

'Free like only animals can be' - spottted on a car in Nunhead

Reclaim the Streets/Critical Mass - advertising planned event in May 2025

Lots more posts about this kind of stuff

Music Monday: Peckham Blancmange

Synth duo Blancmange had a string of early 1980s hits, starting with Living on the Ceiling in 1982. Singer Neil Arthur hailed from Lancashire but at the peak of their success he was living in 'London SE15 in a huge Georgian house. It's not mine I share it with four other people'. (don't know where but Peckham Peculiar has previously mentioned that he used to get his hair cut at Georgiou’s barbers on Atwell Road).

In the same 1983 interview with weekly pop magazine No.1, Arthur tells of his love for Young Marble Giants, seeing the Human League at the Nashville with Bowie in the crowd and of his wish 'that the Conservatives don't get in again' (spoiler: they did).

No.1 magazine, May 21 1983

My personal favourite of their's is their fine 1984 cover of Abba's The Day Before You Came. Of course the original is a synth pop classic in its own right and Abba's best song. Blancmange's video cuts in scenes from Abba's own promotional film for their version, and their Stockholm rail journey is replaced with a London one including going over Hungerford bridge, so presumably on the London Bridge to Charing Cross line. Pop obsessives may spot Blancmange change one line in the song - can you spot it?*

* answer - in the Abba version they sing 'I must have read a while, The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style'. Blancmange change the author to Barbara Cartland.  I was always thought it was cool that Abba namechecked a feminist writer though.

Update: confirmation on Twitter, that Neil Arthur lived in Choumert Road SE15

Goblin Band and some South London folk nights/open mics

Goblin Band were great at the Goose is Out last week (Friday 31st January 2025) at the Ivy House, bringing a new energy to traditional folk song including not one but two versions of Widecombe Fair, a song which as they note they have resurrected after it being out of fashion for years. Excellent support too from Scottish singer/harpist Holly Murphy and unaccompanied singer Victoria Lynn (Goblin Band also played a few days later at the New Cross Inn, a benefit for Transgender Action).

Holly Murphy

Folk music is pretty accessible for those who want to take part, you don't even need to learn an instrument! For people who want to try singing and performing themselves there are plenty of entry points locally. The Goose is Out has a monthly singaround at the Ivy House (next one is  Sunday 9th Feb) where people take turns with standing and singing a song.

Deptford Folk is on the last Thursday of every month downstairs at the Endeavour, 39 Deptford Broadway, and has floor spots. Folk of the Round Table is a weekly Sunday open session  at SET Social (55a Nigel Road SE15 4NP). There is a Thursday night open mic at the Shirkers Rest in New Cross. As a spin off from that a New Cross Songwriter's Circle is doing a night there too.

Update May 2025:

Goblin Band were amazing at the Broadside Hacks May Day event at St Giles Church in Camberwell (30 April 2025), ending with a hobby horse and the Belles of London City dancing in the church in a night that also featured singer Daisy Rickhman.

Hollydale Tavern reopens

The Hollydale Tavern - on the corner of Hollydale and Brayards Roads SE15 - has been spruced up and reopened, having been closed since 2019. We popped in for an early evening drink last week, very child friendly at that time of night with craft activities for kids going on and families ordering in pizza from Yard Sale.

The pub has an exhibition of delightful bird prints by locally based artist Fran Giffard. Fran says 'I  live and work in Peckham Rye, London. When I am not drawing birds in my studio, I am studying them at the Natural History Museum or the Horniman Museum' (interview with her at Little Observationist).

photo by Fran Giffard 

Goldfinch 

Peckham Day of the Dead

Mexican Day of the Dead altar at Mexican Mama in Rye Lane SE15.

Also added to my collection of hot sauces from the shop that specialises in Mexican food imports.