Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre Closes: Best 30
30 images Created 26 Sep 2020
This is about the day that Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre closed its doors for the last time after 55 years.
Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre closed for demolition and redevelopment at 5pm on the 24th September 2020, after 55 years of serving the local community. Originally constructed in 1898, it was re-built on the bomb damaged site in 1965.
As the shop keepers cleared away their stock and fittings, locals wandered over the two floors swapping stories of their childhoods. It was where they gathered as kids, then met lifelong partners.
Many market traders and small business owners are being relocated but some are ending their trading lives. Gentrification steps up a gear here after the nearby Heygate Estate morphed into Elephant Park - and so with the shopping centre, which will become a university site, office and leisure spaces - plus 979 homes, of which 161 will be 'affordable'.
This typically means affordable to those with Rubles ot Yuan to invest in London who will come here to buy, then leave vacant, the urban spaces once enjoyed by ordinary south Londoners.
Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre closed for demolition and redevelopment at 5pm on the 24th September 2020, after 55 years of serving the local community. Originally constructed in 1898, it was re-built on the bomb damaged site in 1965.
As the shop keepers cleared away their stock and fittings, locals wandered over the two floors swapping stories of their childhoods. It was where they gathered as kids, then met lifelong partners.
Many market traders and small business owners are being relocated but some are ending their trading lives. Gentrification steps up a gear here after the nearby Heygate Estate morphed into Elephant Park - and so with the shopping centre, which will become a university site, office and leisure spaces - plus 979 homes, of which 161 will be 'affordable'.
This typically means affordable to those with Rubles ot Yuan to invest in London who will come here to buy, then leave vacant, the urban spaces once enjoyed by ordinary south Londoners.
