St Agnes Place - History

History

On 1 June 1969 house number 54 was the first to be squatted. The council had acquired the unit and planned to demolish it for the extension to Kennington Park. The derelict buildings were completely rebuilt by the squatters. An attempt to evict it in 1977 was successfully resisted on the rooftops. A High Court injunction ordered the demolition to stop. The resulting furore and publicity on a national scale prevented further demolition.

A block of buildings were demolished either side of the road, and some were badly damaged and scaffolded. But a large central block on both sides of the road were completely untouched, and were in occupation on the day of the attempted demolition, and thereafter. Some damaged ones were renovated again by the residents, and made habitable i.e. one was re-roofed, and several were re-wired and had basic services restored.

The residents of St Agnes paid all utility bills and for several years were run by a housing cooperative with diverse occupancy, and in the last few years a larger number of young homeless people. In November 2005, Lambeth London Borough Council finally obtained a High Court of Justice order to evict the residents of 21 properties. This mass eviction was completed on 30 November 2005.

Bob Marley stayed there on several occasions in the 1970s; St Agnes Place had a Rastafari community and had a Rastafari temple along with other related social centres.

There were several community projects at St Agnes Place:

• Housing the homeless
• Social centre (#60)
• Free parties
• A Rastafari community (it has been stated that a third of the street were Rastafari)
• Musicians, pirate radio and artists

St Agnes Place was responsible for producing music and also broadcasting Wireless FM and pirate radio station Rasta FM, which was raided by Ofcom in October 2005.

One resident said: "It's evolved into a unique community in London. You can walk in and out of people's houses here. It's a safe street. There's no mugging here. I think there is a lot of things society as a whole could learn from the way we live here.".