Men of a certain age and bent

…Vauxhall

Men of a certain age and bent may remember with fondness the heyday of the Market Tavern, which once packed them in. Those days are long gone as soon will be Market Towers - on the left in the picture - which housed the pub.

This 88-metre high office block had dominated this corner of Vauxhall from its erection in1975 until a year or so ago. Then it was overtaken and eventually dwarfed by the 181-metre high One St George’s Wharf - on the right in the picture. ‘The Tower’ is the tallest exclusively residential tower block in England - at the time of writing.

The owners of Market Towers are meeting the usurper head-on: they’re pulling it down and putting up two towers - the shorter 160 metres high, the taller 200 metres.

The area around Market Towers is where my all-time favourite film ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ was shot on location. The second of the two launderettes opened by the film’s fictional entrepreneurs at 255 Wandsworth Road is still a launderette over thirty years later and currently trading under the name ‘Dirty Laundry’.

But such longevity is rare in an area changing apace. Where once stood Nine Elms Sainsbury’s supermarket (also familiar to many men of a certain age and bent) is a gigantic crater. I had meant to blip it before it disappeared but the end came so suddenly. I’d like to capture the hole before it’s filled in and maybe, too, all the cranes visible from Vauxhall Bridge - possibly the greatest concentration of cranes anywhere in London. There are all sorts of things about to rise along this stretch of the south bank of the Thames, including the Usians' new fortress embassy.