# London Park Hotel in Elephant & Castle



## poster342002 (Aug 19, 2005)

I remember there being a huge building near the Elephant & Castle roundabouts that had illuminated red lettering at the top which read "London Park Hotel".

Does it still exist? And is it still a hotel? What type of hotel was/is it?


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## Dubversion (Aug 19, 2005)

most recently i think it was used as a hostel for Eastern Europe asylum seekers/refugees. as if the poor sods hadn't suffered enough they had to stay there and spend their days hanging round the fucking shopping centre


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## poster342002 (Aug 19, 2005)

What was it used for before that? Did it ever function as a regular hotel for tourists and the like?


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## Dubversion (Aug 19, 2005)

some history here



> Tanzanian-born  Firoz Kassam (also owner of Oxford Utd FC)  owned the London Park hotel at Elephant & Castle. It
> had a Home Office contract to house 600 asylum seekers. The Observer carried an article in 2000: "Refugees slam
> 'hostel from hell' Victims of tyranny talk of violence between ethnic groups, bullying and theft at the sanctuary that
> costs council £3m a year...It looks like any other anonymous, run-down inner city building. Its name, the London
> ...


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## poster342002 (Aug 19, 2005)

Interesting - but I remember this place being around as far back as the 1980s. What was it like then?


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## Dubversion (Aug 19, 2005)

no idea. only lived round here since the early 90s..


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## lang rabbie (Aug 19, 2005)

IIRC it was built as a Rowton House

Yup...



> Rowton and the Guiness Trust
> 
> Rowton was a philanthropist, who helped set up the Guinness Trust in 1890. He undertook a survey of London's ‘common lodging houses’ for the Trust and decided to set up working men's hostels – to give men a better, cleaner place to live.
> 
> ...



http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/stalin in east end.htm


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## lang rabbie (Aug 19, 2005)

See also this from the Vauxhall Society  - pictures of typical interior



> In 1897 Parkview House at NEWINGTON BUTTS was opened with 800 beds at 7d per night.


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## boohoo (Aug 19, 2005)

Dubversion said:
			
		

> no idea. only lived round here since the early 90s..



sarf-london newbie!

I remembered the big sign on the building when I was a kid. There was prefabs around the streets be the swimming pool.  Actually that area can be seen in the early eighties in the Dexy's Midnight Runner's video for Come on Eileen. The water tower from Lambeth hospital can be seen in the back ground and is also on the derlict London website, cos I emailed the bloke about it.

....enough of my useless information...


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## boohoo (Aug 19, 2005)

lang rabbie said:
			
		

> IIRC it was built as a Rowton House
> 
> Yup...
> 
> http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/stalin in east end.htm



You might know this.... in the film Blow Up, there is a doss house he takes photos in. The postcode of the street is in Peckham and I remember there being a huge building like the London Park Hotel, down a side road by a railway line about 13/14 yrs ago. I'm trying to find out if this is the same building in the film.


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## lang rabbie (Aug 19, 2005)

boohoo said:
			
		

> You might know this.... in the film Blow Up, there is a doss house he takes photos in. The postcode of the street is in Peckham and I remember there being a huge building like the London Park Hotel, down a side road by a railway line about 13/14 yrs ago. I'm trying to find out if this is the same building in the film.



Would that have been the Camberwell Spike, where Orwell also stayed during his Down and Out... researches

IIRC that was somewhere off Gordon Road

Edited to add:   You just need to Google for Antonioni + "Blow Up" + Camberwell






http://www.reelstreets.com/blow_up.htm


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## boohoo (Aug 19, 2005)

lang rabbie said:
			
		

> Would that have been the Camberwell Spike, where Orwell also stayed during his Down and Out... researches
> 
> IIRC that was somewhere off Gordon Road



I'm gonna have to have a nose down that way. I will recognise the location even if the building is gone. The old doss house in Whitechapel is another great looking building - now being done up into posh flats.

There was also some nice prefabs down that way, now gone.


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## poster342002 (Aug 19, 2005)

All interesting stuff, but I'm still left wondering what London Park Hotel was used for in the 1980s?


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## lang rabbie (Aug 19, 2005)

poster342002 said:
			
		

> All interesting stuff, but I'm stillleft wondering what London Park Hotel was used for in the 1980s?



As an hotel AFAIK from when I worked near the Elephant 1988-1990.    

You could still get rooms well into the 1990s that were advertised in backpackers' handbooks.

I also have a very vague idea that South Bank Poly used to block book some space for overseas students.


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## hipsway (May 17, 2011)

*London park hotel*



poster342002 said:


> All interesting stuff, but I'm still left wondering what London Park Hotel was used for in the 1980s?



I worked in the LONDON PARK HOTEL(on Brook Drive) in the 1970's. It was a very busy and quite nice tourist hotel, with a constant stream of tourists from all over the world. I had the greatest time working there, met lots of interesting people and made friends I still know to this day. It was quite plush, though not as posh as the west-end - where I moved to afterwards. There were two bars, a coffee shop and a restaurant. I visited it in 1994 and was saddened to see how it had been allowed to deteriorate.


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## Belushi (May 17, 2011)

Dammit, for one exciting moment I thought my favourite miserable poster was back,


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## lang rabbie (May 17, 2011)

Welcome hipsway

Following the resuscitation of this thread from a five year coma, I've just realised that although I shared it with "another forum", I never posted this link to a photo of the original appearance of the London Park Hotel building before bomb damage  on Urban 75.  And four years on from posting the link - I've only just realised that the photo is by ben patio!


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## quimcunx (May 17, 2011)

How come new posters can all find methuselan aged threads but my searches don't get anything older than a couple of years?


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## lang rabbie (May 17, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> How come new posters can all find methuselan aged threads but my searches don't get anything older than a couple of years?


 
In my experience, since the last "upgrade" to vbulletin, it is easier to find Urban posts on Google than on this site's own search function.


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## joustmaster (May 17, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> How come new posters can all find methuselan aged threads but my searches don't get anything older than a couple of years?


not trying hard enough


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## quimcunx (May 17, 2011)

joustmaster said:


> not trying hard enough


 
No, not that     It's because they are googling.  Yes.


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## Chris Finn (Feb 19, 2014)

I and my work colleagues stayed at the London Park Hotel several times in the late 80's up to about 1991. This was our hotel of preference as it was considerably cheaper at £55 a night than the city prices of around £100+ even back then. I remember the reception areas, bar and restaurant were nice and welcoming and had a good atmosphere. The rooms however were basic to say the least, but it was a bed for the night. I do recall the door locks being the Yale type and not very secure. I also remember the pre-fabricated homes just outside the hotel that made you realise how fortunate you were to be able to stay in a hotel. 
Overall, good memories.


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## hipipol (Feb 20, 2014)

was once the Elphant Spike
Used to have clouds of piss soaked Fighting Men all around
became a pile o rubble I think
As salubrious as a sloths ringpiece


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## clicker (Feb 20, 2014)

I remember seeing the huge red sign, glowing in the wintry evenings as i sat on the train coming home from school. It looked so welcoming and warm. I was probably freezing. I imagined it to be height of sophistication.


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## George & Bill (Feb 20, 2014)

Chris Finn said:


> I and my work colleagues stayed at the London Park Hotel several times in the late 80's up to about 1991. This was our hotel of preference as it was considerably cheaper at £55 a night than the city prices of around £100+ even back then. I remember the reception areas, bar and restaurant were nice and welcoming and had a good atmosphere. The rooms however were basic to say the least, but it was a bed for the night. I do recall the door locks being the Yale type and not very secure. I also remember the pre-fabricated homes just outside the hotel that made you realise how fortunate you were to be able to stay in a hotel.
> Overall, good memories.



£55 a night pretty steep in the 80s no? You could get a Travellodge for not much more even now...


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## Bo Stäring (Mar 6, 2014)

I stayed at the hotel in 1992 with a bunch of  teen-agers from Sweden. My own son turned 12 there. I am a teacher of English. The surroundings were dodgy and we were told to look out for the local gang.
But nothing happened. 
Bo Stäring


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