Furniture and lighting designer Lee Broom in Kennington
(Picture: Adrian Lourie)I’ve lived in a flat in a converted 19th-century fire station in Kennington for almost 20 years. It’s a beautiful building with lots of industrial details, including the old doorway, which is now a window. It still has the original watchtower, from which someone would try to spot fires across the city.
When I first moved to London I lived in Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove with no plans to move south, but I love this area — you’re so central, but there’s also something quite leafy and suburban about it. There’s a lot of history here, even though it was quite heavily bombed during the war, and it attracts people from all walks of life. It’s been an up-and-coming area for two decades now.
