Thanks for making and posting. The Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, designed by Boissevain & Osmond, was opened in March 1965. With 120 shops on three levels and a two-storey underground car-park, it was the first covered shopping mall in Europe and surely the ugliest. It has been part of my life for 50 years. There have been rumours that it was going to be pulled down for as long as I can remember. The decades passed, but it never happened. Now at last it has.

Beautiful music

Thanks for this. I have fond memories as an Apprentice for an electrical contractors firm who we're changing the old DHSS floor at the top into a huge bingo hall in through the spring-summer of 1997 or 1998. I was from a small town in the black country in the west midlands and had never experienced such a metropolitan place with so much to offer. Spent many of my breaks exploring the Market outside the main entrance. It was like another world compared to where I was from. Always think about that time a lot. I was lucky enough to go out onto the roof for a great view of the city.

As a young Irish lad of 16 I remember walking through the pedestrian underpasses at the Elephant & Castle and seeing blue stencils on the walls proclaiming "Coming out soon, New Order's "Blue Monday" (or something to that effect?). I also bought my first Van Halen record in the shopping centre (Women and Children First) in 1983 .... ah! memories! sigh.

I lived in kennington from 1981 to 1991 and walked past this place every day on my way to school.. lots of good memories....area is totally changed now and not for the better london has lost its soul long ago to gentrification.

Used to work in the area from 2016-2018, and visited the place on several occasions. Yeah, it was ugly, but still feels like an end of an era. Nice music in the video though.

On my visit from NYC in 2018 I stopped by here. Reminded me of being in Queens.

😭😭😭 it's a real shame and sad I remember the Elephant and Castle since I was a child .

There is a vid on here of Wembley being chopped down, too. I live beside Earls Court Conference Centre, and it has also been demolished. They said it wasn't financially worth keeping it, when all it needed was someone to run it , so it made money. Now it is just a building site, like Battersea Power station. End of an ear that should not have been allowed.

Between 2011 and 2014 I was often in London. My station to relax was this Shopping Center. I "knew" one day it wouldn't stand anymore and I knew it would take long because there would be people to have a problem with that. I was right.

Sad sad sad.. end of an era. I started my Cumbia CD collection here, I loved the low key vibe in there, like a 'peoples' shopping centre made for, and by, the local community. Now it will be all Poor Doors and social apartheid from here on..

Many memories 😢

The end is always the beginning of something new.

All that is left now is the lower ground, the subterranean basement, and of course Hannibal house.

Cambridges Grafton Centre is going the same way and on borrowed time now and is 20 years younger than the Elephant.

Same as Whitleys in Bayswater. They tried so hard to reinvent it in the eighties, but had to close it again eventually, cos it simply didn't make enough money to run it. Did they keep the Elephant statue?

Just shows you the last time I was there ,I didn’t realise it had gone ..what is there now

Construction time again.

I remember this place opening. Was of Brutalism design. The best thing about was The Charlie Chaplin pub between it and the tube station. Never caught on so a White Elephant from the outset.

They've mist a bit...

My husband and I went there in 2019.. why are they breaking it down? Greetings from Denmark🙋‍♀️🇬🇧🇩🇰

@Rubiconlnd

2 жыл бұрын

it was old

@christinaskipper6338

2 жыл бұрын

@@Rubiconlnd ok.. Thank you 😊

@YellowcomTV

2 жыл бұрын

Ok

@tomtaylor7339

7 ай бұрын

And hardly any shops were open inside the centre anymore.

Anyone know what the new development will look like?

@NicolasChinardet

3 жыл бұрын

elephantandcastletowncentre.co.uk/looking-to-the-future/

@treasurehunteruk9718

2 жыл бұрын

@@NicolasChinardet What did they do with the Elephant statue?

@NicolasChinardet

2 жыл бұрын

@@treasurehunteruk9718 It's been given a temporary home in Castle Square, on the other side of the tracks, until the site is redeveloped. www.flickr.com/photos/zefrog/albums/72157719463190647

@treasurehunteruk9718

2 жыл бұрын

@@NicolasChinardet Good, I am glad they are keeping it. I thought they should have kept one of the towers at Wembley, and put it in the ground of the new building, but they didn't. I love history and think we should keep these relics of past times.

Very sad....but...in a way good post....very sad because I remember when it was being built...good .. because it invited crime

@andreassciascia5745

2 жыл бұрын

yes, its the fault of the concrete walls.

Keep destroying history big developers.. you’ll be crying when your paper mache 3 story comes crashing down. No idea how I got here, but..

@isaacsrandomvideos667

2 жыл бұрын

@CZArctic I don’t even know about the place lol, but it looked pretty cool haha

It was ugly place now become posh and unfriendly 😂