Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre (CLOSED 24/09/2020, RIP) : UK Dead Mall Series 

Hey man, thanks for uploading this, I wasn’t there for the closure because I’m currently in Newcastle and couldn’t come down for one last look. I grew up in the Elephant and castle area and would go to this shopping centre with me mum and sister. It holds so many memories and I’m absolutely gutted it’s going. I know it was a mess but I don’t know, I suppose I was just used to the way it was. There used a be a Woolworths there, I remember the pick n mix section, begging my mum to buy me a toy from one of the stalls. So many memories. Anyhow, I’m rambling on. Thanks again.

Thanks for this upload . Twenty years of happy memories. Am I the only person to lament the passing of this shopping centre. Thanks for filming and preserving the memories

was in london college of printing in 76 to 80 .used to drink in the elephant which was under an office block , the two barmaids had beehives and huge false eyelashes , there was a pub just outside the shopping center called newington butts which was a cube shape with no windows ..beer was ben truman (dishwater ) , also charlie chaplin pub, pineapple (great) , hampton court (lunchtime stripper ) , and prince of wales was the main local , used to play footie in the courts by the war museum, also swimming pool by the college had a wave machine which generated a huge wave ,you could also get a beer there ..happy days indeed oh and saw Johnny Kwango the wrestler at the tube station lol

I worked here back in 2010-2012 as a community officer - your video bought back so many memories, you’re right elephant and castle wasn’t without its crime and anti social behaviour but the community was so strong and lovely at times. I really enjoyed working the area and getting to know all the market traders and shop owners. I was so sad to hear it closed. Thank you for filming the centre 🙌🏼

I grew up there in the 90s and use to go there for shopping with dad, good memories.

I loved the Elephant and Castle. You could find everything you needed, the place was full of characters. The Sundial cafe was always packed with people. I use to buy fantastic Italian shoes from a market stall outside, cheap and comfortable. There also use to be a great noodle restaurant I went to for lunch.

Thank you for filming this. The memories in this place are a treasure for so many of us in the community.

RIP Elephant and Castle

Affordable housing and London sounds like an oxymoron. I hope they are at least saving the elephants.

This video brought back so many memories of the 90s for me. I used to work near the E/C and on my way back from work would go into the Tesco there to do my food shopping and then pop across to Iceland to buy a few more things. My friends and I used to wonder through the SC just to browse in the shops and went into Greggs quite often to get some munchies. In fact I bought my 1st ever 3piece suite from the furniture shop just next to Tesco in there. I would go in every month to make payments towards my 3 piece suite until I made my last payment. Those were the good old days going into the E/C SC. it's quite sad now that history is being erased to make way for modern buildings. I'll forever cherish this video and thank you so much for capturing the E/Cs last moments

Great idea filming this in it’s last few days, you’ve really captured history here. Even though it was grotty and run down, it still held a special place in the heart of us locals. I still remember coming here as a teenager - when it was in a slightly better state - browsing the stationery in WHSmiths, checking out the toys in Woolworths, looking for lipglosses in Boots and getting my essential breakfast pastry from Tesco’s.🤣👌Ahh..memories 😢🤗 They have been talking about getting rid of this place for years now, in fact when I was 15 we did a school project about what the “new” elephant and castle shopping centre would look like and that was over 20 years ago now. 🙄😳🙈Gonna miss it but looking forward to seeing what they are _finally_ going to do with the place…🤔🤣🙌

Back in the mid-80’s I used to work in the railway ticket office at E&C - a poky little office cramped around the back of the mall as I recall, and always a 12 hour turn as none of the relief wanted to go there. Wish I had taken some pictures, as I expect it had been improved drastically by now from how it was…..

Thank you for posting this. When my son was small we used to come and have breakfast with a friend at Jenny's (2:20), so the place is full of happy memories.

Thank you for uploading this, E&C shopping centre holds so many memories for me growing up. I like a lot of people in the comments didn’t get a chance to see it for the last time so thank you for doing this

Thanks for uploading. Living in north / east London I did not get to visit the shopping centre that much. In the early 2000 I was dating a girl for the area so I do have some memories of it. I happened to pop in there just before it was closed (early sept I think) and it was nice to have a last look at the place. It’s a real shame that so many businesses have nowhere to go and a centre for the community is being ripped up and thrown away.

Thank you for documenting history here. 👍 my thoughts with those who suffer as a result of this regeneration. As someone who went to & was lucky enough to DJ at the Ministry of Sound around the corner in the 00s I was always intrigued by this place.

I was a local boy.....living in Peckham.....and my Nan used to go shopping here, and play Bingo. It was ugly from the word go, but as you say, gentrification kills much. I now live in Australia, but go back often, and stay in Peckham, visiting my roots. My wife is Chilean so the Latin connection is like coming home.........

I worked there in the 80's and I was a security guard we had a great team Robert ,Graham, Bill, Billy Blake and our inspector Tony and all the others unfortunately I have forgotten that's what growing old does I loved this place so much too many good memories with tears in my eyes wishing I could go back I will always miss it the people were great Tescos Lanes Butchers Woolworths to name a few. Love this place. Fergus

i remember the cafe, downstairs (which has always stayed a cafe) when you could smoke London is going to become a Hi-Tech corporate owned city zone .

Thank you very much for uploading this! I’ve had a lot memories shopping at this place during my teenage years! So sad and shocked to hear that they are tearing this place down. 😔 I hope they will create like a memorial board with pictures and information for the public to view. It will be a nice piece of history to look back on for future generations! 😊

So many good memories. Thanks for filming.

Came over from Ireland in 1983 and passed through that shopping centre (to the train station) nearly everyday for a year! Bought my first Van Halen album ('Women and Children First') in a little record store that was on the ground floor.. happy times! I f I remember correctly there was a public toilet just below the lower level of the walkway at 0:20

These videos are so interesting and calming at the same time. Thank you for all the effort you put into your work and for sharing it with us!

A great snapshot of the place. It will become more valuable as each day passes.

Went over to London from Ireland last year for some sightseeing. Took some wrong turns and stumbled upon this shopping centre. There was Salsa dancing going on and I was fascinating by the character of the building. Stumbled across this video and was said to see it is being torn down and meant so much to people, but glad I got to see it while it was here.

I can’t believe it’s actually gone 😳😵I remember as a teenager hanging out There used to be a flower shop upstairs where a certain boxers sister owned it she was lovely and used to let me help out I even met her brother once I’ll be sad to see it go I’ve got a lot of good memories of the place

That was an excellent synthwave type piece of production, for a shopping centre that deserved that production.

Thanks for these images and I still have memories.

Thanks, I was sad to see it closed up. I did not get a chance to say bye 😂. I bet there were discount at the supermarkets days before.

Ok you've caught my attention I'm in love with your channel!!! Great job!!!

stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

I was there back in the early 90’s. When I studied at Southwark College os Art and Design. How times flies, very sad that it had to go. I hope to local business will find another location that are affordable to rent. There are too much greed in this world.

Nice to have a last look, thanks. I knew it well in the 80s and it was a community hub. Market stalls outside, too. You also provide a bit of context, why it's closing, what will replace it... so great job!

Many happy times. A sad day. Thank you I will rewatch when I need some good memories. 🙏🏽

Used to frequent the Tesco often on my way back from work, lived in the spikey grey and yellow tower called “uncle”

when I first clicked on this video I thought it would be Dan Bell but I found something even better

I remember it when it opened and played in there when I was a child.

I literally grew up there because my dad used to be one of the managers who used to be in the big blue crate outside.

Thanks for this video. Sad to see the old place go. I used to go there frequently when I lived on Walworth Road back in the early 2000s. Not been since about 2012. The place had character and it is sad to see it being pulled down.

My parents had a pub in Tower Bridge road, so we often went there. I was there when it first opened.

Thank you for filming this, I was hoping to visit myself before it closed but couldn't fit it into my schedule. E&C Shopping Centre has always been oddly fascinating to me; it was grotty and run-down but at the same time very lived-in and almost charming. However that could be just because it stood in contrast to Central and more recently that monstrosity Strata SE1.

Really enjoying your videos, this one was recommended to me after watching Dan Bell and its great to see some UK dead malls and shops, lord knows we have plenty of them 🙈

So many memories were made here I remember shopping at Tescos almost every night and going there with my Family/friends what a childhood sad to see it go but it was about time it was getting run down, I am excited for next chapter thank you for this insight full video 🙏

this was the place after uni so many good memories, thank you for uploading this

Elephant and Castle shopping Centre (1965-2020)

Three and a half years on 😢 why am I still sad this place has gone

I used to go to school nearby in the late 60s and early 70s, remember it well , at that time there were no traders in the isles just shops. My favorite was the W H Smiths which used to be on two floors with a staircase in the store, could not see Smiths in your video I expect they moved out some time before the closure. Last time I was there was about 1 years ago we ate in an Indian restaurant after a Chinese Restaurant we had booked in the Walworth Rd double booked and let us down. Shame to see it go, it was revolutionary in its time , as you said in your commentary the first Mall in Europe let alone the UK.

I worked there for 3 months or so during the summer of 1997 as an apprentice electrician and I had just turned 18. We were turning the old office which was i believe the DHSS at the top of the escalators into what would be know as the largest bingo hall in Europe. Coming from walsall in the west Midlands I'd lived a sheltered life when compared to experiencing the full on culture shock of not only a Pink building and an big Elephant but the amazing range of shops and different nationalities going about their day. I remember loving the Market and all the different stalls whilst on my lunch break. Sometimes I used to go up onto the roof and look at the view of big ben and parliament. I really missed it when the work was finished. The next time I saw it was on tv for the trial of the tragic Stephen Lawrence case as the courts were on the first floor.

R.i.p e&c shopping centre

The Charlie Chaplin. In the early 90s I was a small time music promoter, busker, chancer, and PA hire/sound engineer who was involved in showcasing bands from the local South London area and beyond. Most of the time I would be waiting for the phone to ring for someone to hire my PA, which can be a little frustrating if you’re actually relying on it, so I decided to have a go at organising my own gigs, therefore guaranteeing work for my sound services. I came to an arrangement with the Irish landlady of The Charlie Chaplin pub which was attached to the centre, - (Charlie was brought up in the vicinity, and was/is a cultural icon of the area; it closed in 2018) that I could use, the spacious, though mainly unused, function room upstairs, to do with as I musically pleased. I inventively called it ‘The Upstairs Club’. I would put on any kind of music with the only prerequisite being that it had to be original music, with genres as diverse as punk, new wave, indie, grunge, reggae, salsa, electronic, experimental, industrial... Anything but pop and covers. I had a few good nights in there with bands like the aptly named Elephant Sandwich, The Radical Dance Faction, P.A.I.N., and Martin Rossiter’s wonderful Gene, who’s song Somewhere in the World still pleases me to this day. If I’m brutally honest it wasn’t a financial success; I can actually remember standing outside handing out fliers on cold lonely nights, being only one sentence away from begging the buggers to come in. They didn’t - much. My younger attitude was in full swing, and my logo was -‘Where else can you see 3 f##k off bands for the price of a packet of tabs.’ ‘Tabs’ being Geordie slang - short for tobacco. Cigarettes had scandalously just gone over the £2 pound mark, and that was my entrance fee to the club. I still have a faded t shirt, and a couple of fliers to remind me. In retrospect it was over in the blink of an eye, it only had an 11 o’clock licence, and it all ended in an uneventful fizzle. It wasn’t a popular place for a night out, and even then I felt as if I was flogging a dead horse. I do have fond memories of my years living just off the Walworth road and East Street, and I learnt a lot from the experience. Though I have to say it was the people that made it that way; the building was always ugly. There was a 15 storey (ish) “sick building” which lay mysteriously empty directly opposite, and I could never find a logical reason for its vacancy; apart from it’s a “sick building”. I’m talking years as well. If anybody knows the story I would sleep much better at nights. Easy’!

Miss place so much, grew up here this was local shopping centre. Pondland was good, and poundbusters gonna miss to, and greggs, and jamican food place, great hairdresser to, and insence seller,

When I was young I lived away from my dad due to my parent's divorce, my mum moved quite far into the country and my dad stayed in London. Though my relationship with my dad has always been relatively iffy, he'd try his best to take me out whenever we were together, cinemas, parks, etc. but one place he always mentioned wanting to take me was Elephant and Castle where he'd talk about the curious different shops and stalls spread out throughout the centre, and the affordable discoveries he made, and my young mind seemed to fill of imaginations of elephants and castles. Unfortunately I never actually visited, though from what I've heard of the place in recent years, I really do wish I was able to.

Rambunctious is a great word, and I'm going to find a place to use it. Cheers Marra!

"investment into the center and the area as a whole has been sorely lacking" that's your answer to London. And this is what you get: an easy money grab by developers (and greedy MPs who share the wealth) of highly over-priced accommodation that no-one local wants or is able to afford. Just sold off to overseas investors with unknown sources of wealth. Those saying gentrification is good can shut up.

I remember when before the closure, the tesco in the place where people usually enter, they closed and the place that a lot of people went to was actually poundland on the bottom floor where all the carpets, shoes and stuff were being sold

I was at the London Road site of the Polytechnic of the South Bank in 1980. I wish I'd known of La Bodeguita restaurant. But, it really wasn't an area to be hanging around in even back then - and certainly not at night.

I've never been here but sad it's gone anyway. Looks like it was a place filled with memories.

didnt live there but every couple of years when i was young would visit and the memories are rather pleasant, though unfortunately years later to see vacant shops like so many similar centers had seen.

I found this so sad. For 13 yrs I lived at the Elephant and shopped in the centre. Yes it was run down and yes it was grotty but it did have a community feel and I never felt threatened there. The guys who ran Blockbusters were great. You could buy any household thing there. I hope they have found a new place to be. I also loved the old Woolies which pre-dated Clarks shoe shop. Another part of my London history gone but thanks for a beautiful video.

Oh man. I feel for the business owners that have to close up shop. I've worked for companies that closed so I can only imagine what the business owners are going through! My heart goes out to them from Canada!

Great video brings back a lot of memories was brought up just along the road at Newington causeway & Scovell Road was in here most days Medallion cafe Green Shield stamp shop and the kiosk where you could make a floppy record. Also the cinema’s Saturday morning matinee’s Bedlam 😂. Family moved away years ago back got down last year for one final look the whole area was full of great memories for me one of the best places to be brought up back in the day farewell.

A very sad day for London, especially for the local community. Its not a bad place, it's not unsafe. So many have lost their businesses, hence their livelihoods. This was a beacon of hope once in the 60's, for major social reform. I cried when I heard this was going. At least they have the traditional East Lane market, but not the same......

I grew up in Brixton '65 - '76 and had a Nan in Kennington and Aunt and Uncle in Walworth so mostly shopped in Brixton but occasionly went to the Elephant and Castle on Saturdays up until the mid '70s. I moved away from London but went back once to the E & C in about 1992. The thing that struck me was it smelt the same inside. That took me right back all them years. There was a fella in there in the early 70s that drew your portrait with a charcoal pencil or something. Anyone remember that ? Another one, Im sure i didnt imagine it but I have a memory of something like a Lamborghini Countach on display in there early 70s as well.

I miss that place

I remember it opening in 1965. It was unusual enough that I was taken there to see it by my parents; I would have been eight at the time. Used it quite often in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. The top floor only ever had a handful of shops occupied, maybe half a dozen or so, and this floor only lasted a few years. I think the original conversion was to offices. It was also used to access the railway station, as an alternative entrance to the one in Elephant Road. I only went there once in recent times, about three years ago and that was only because I needed to use the toilets on my way to the Cinema Museum. It should have been refurbished, not closed. The statue of the elephant can be seen at the start of the Cine Gazette film ,’The Elephant Will Never Forget’ made for London Transport by British Transport Films, about the last week of the London trams, in 1952. There’s a copy of it on RU-vid.

I worked Friday nights and Saturdays in Tescos back in the 70s. Eating in the burger grill.

It was great when I was young in the 90s went up there most Saturdays But sadly due to mass migration Many of these people opening their own stores in London and other parts of the uk we are seeing our way of life going away excluding the shops we all once used and the markets

It will be missed, great vid, gave it justice and rembrance, and memories to me, great vid, just hope some traders get new place to trade and market will be missed to,

I was there in September 2022......awl gawn.....and we waiting for wot? The Tube stations still exist and the electric substation looks the same......and the Masonic Hall is forever.....

Memories yes

i used to work at the bingo hall 2013 till it finally closed,happy days

I used to come here with me dad to change he’s green shield stamps up for Christmas presents for us kids

Intrigued to see a 'Jenny's Burger' which I thought had all disappeared years ago! Hope to get down for a last look before the Centre is flattened.

Wonder what happened to the elephant statues

0:49 First covered mall in Europe ?! I wasn't aware of that - Thanks

I know it well, mainly for Tesco but I know the Elephant pub and Rockingham Arms better. When I first visited I wasn’t impressed, the Bauhaus architecture will do that to you, then a few nights out in the area and I soon warmed to it and often shuffled between Elephant, London Bridge and Camberwell, each area being my second home at different times. Also how much is affordable as another old drinking haunt Vauxhall one day had these huge private towers appear one day and the lights seem to be on but no one home in Nine Elms/Wandsworth Road. It would be a shame if that happened to the Elephant.

What will happen to the Elephant statue?

Nice video but I thought that Birmingham's Bull Ring (1964) was the UK's first covered shopping mall?

time waits for no man. I hate change. RIP.

The shopping was never successfully let. it was considered on the slide in the 1970's. It was badly designed and was always terrible for the urban environment. There are also loads of cheap shops down the length of Walworth Road. The area was known as the Piccadilly circus of the South before the second world war, because of all the cinemas and theatres here, around a busy brightly lit junction. Unfortunately the entire area was traffic engineered after the war and hideous blocks built which killed the look and function of the old area. The new plans will hopefully function better as a piece of urbanism.

This is shocking. For a mall so closely located to London it boggles my mind how these places can close. I've checked the rent for some of these units and they are ridiculously over priced. Maybe it's intentional to covert them to residential units and make a quick profit. A good justification for the Council.

I worked here from 2015 to 2018. Having so many friends here and now feeling sad 😢

Pretty depressing place. The tube station is hard to get to

Sad, will of love to go there and take photos. Feel bad for these elephants and vending machines. Wonder where they go specially Elephant with Castle on it back?

7:40 that greggs logo brings back so many memories

I was able to get a last few drinks in La Bodeguita before in the final weeks, I'll miss this place, it really feels like a small corner of London's identity has gone.

I've lived in the area for years and the business we're mostly budget business with low quality products 😂

Sad very sad .

Miss this place

Whilst I've only been in the place a few times (as a Brixton resident, it was easier to shop there and in Streatham), you could always tell how it had been neglected for so long. I did manage to use the bowling alley once after the Streatham Megbowl closed, the neglect was plain to see up there as well. It's a shame no effects were taken to give it proper TLC and instead, the awful gentrification of South London continues on

I wonder what will happen to the bronze elephant and castle

It used to be my Manor in the 80's. Oh memories 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

What's considrered "affordable " housing in London?

I wish there rebuild it

So a new open air mall is to come? Will that be demolished in 50 years time?!

I am deeply concerned that the Qatari Royal Family are venturing onto *my* side of the River Thames!

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

It was a depressing place which never felt safe or welcoming. I’m glad it’s now gone and hope the new shops will offer more

I never felt welcome in that mall anyway

If even Greggs don’t feel the need to update their signage what chance did this place have, hard to put it all onto the centre owners, those businesses would never have been able to pay a service charge level that could bring the whole place up to standard, 2020 was high time this place was bulldozed. This may not look out of place in a third world country, but it’s just not good enough for zone 1/2 London, and twenty years too late if you ask me.