During

During
the first throws of the pandemic, food stores became our connection to the
community beyond our front door. Timid and tentative, we’d edge
down our street towards the butcher and baker and candlestick maker
(poetic licence firmly engaged) in order to fill our fridges, but
also to reconnect with a world that had become shut off and distant
overnight. Independent corner stores became one of the few public
spaces we could inhabit beyond the four walls of our home, the
traditional grocery shops once dismissed in place of convenience
offering a precious opportunity for human connection.

It was something Stanley Allen and James Dye both noticed. The
south London duo, stalwarts of the city’s restaurant scene, noticed
the change when independent shops became community lynchpins. “We
saw suppliers having a hard time, but we also saw a need for people
to be able to go out and still enjoy some kind of food and drink
experience during the pandemic,” Stanley explains.

Inspired, the pair decided to launch their own shop, Gladwell’s,
which opens next week. A grocery store, deli and off licence on
Camberwell Church Street, it will champion small-scale producers
based in the capital. Formerly a bank, then a solicitors’ office,
the building the shop is taking over has been a mainstay of the
neighbourhood for generations, albeit one of the grand old ladies
that south Londoners scuttle past en route to the bus stop without
a second glance. The Gladwell’s team are restoring the space,
making the most of its fine Edwardian features by maintaining the
double-height windows and art nouveau facade.

Importantly, Stanley and James wanted to build on what they saw
as a strong community ethos in the area. Weekly grocery boxes will
be available for home delivery, with £5 from the sale of each going
to the St Giles Trust’s Pantry, one of the area’s social justice
charities.

“If you’re going to open a business, you have a responsibility
to be part of the community and give back in meaningful ways,”
Stanley says. “We wanted to do something that wasn’t tokenistic. As
a food business, helping to combat food poverty and food inequality
felt appropriate.” They landed on the St Giles Trust after hearing
about its pandemic initiative, the Pantry, which works in a similar
way to a food bank, but with people being given a choice about what
they want to go in and buy, at a subsidised rate. In future,
Gladwell’s has longer-term ambitions to work with the trust on
employment training, weaving the shop into the Camberwell
community’s fabric.

Stanley sees Camberwell as an overlooked south London district;
the quiet crawlspace between the two boisterous neighbourhoods of
Brixton and Peckham. To some, it’s just a stop on the 436 bus. “Out
of all the neighbourhoods in south-east London, it didn’t have an
independent grocery,” he says. “It’s such a known destination for
food and drink if you want to go out to eat, but it didn’t have
that place to buy produce.”

Gladwell’s will stock products from small businesses across
London, with an ambition to offer, where possible, hyperlocal goods
made – literally – just down the road. Bread, for example, will
come from the new FROG Bakery, just around the corner. Cheese and
eggs will be provided by the city’s Neal’s Yard Dairy and Mons
Cheesemonger.

You’ll find other community projects popping up elsewhere in the
old borough, too. Camberwell’s residents – a ragtag collation of
art students, historic diaspora groups and young professionals –
has long fostered establishments and institutions that serve local
needs. The South London Gallery, while showcasing internationally
renowned art, remains a local space at heart; beloved boozers
happily accommodate grizzled regulars beside mulleted art students,
offering a sanctuary to all in a city famed for fuelling
loneliness. Well-established mom-and-pop-style restaurants – such
as Silk Road, which serves up Xinjiang cuisine – are just as
popular as the more recent PR-hyped spots nearby. It’s common to
compare areas of London to villages, but for Camberwell, the
metaphor fits. Charming, leafy, and lacking a tube stop, life has a
slower pace, and a friendlier face, in this “Ginger Line”
neighbourhood.

Where to eat, drink and hang out in Camberwell, London

To Eat

To Drink

To Do

To Shop