45 Squared 37) CLEAVER SQUARE, SE11
Borough of Lambeth, 110m×40m
London's first garden squares date back to the 17th century but it took until 1789 before the first appeared south of the river. It all kicked off when Mary Cleaver sold her field alongside the Clapham turnpike to the landlord of the Horns Tavern, who then laid out and developed the square one side at a time. The meadow had been called White Bear Field, hence The White Bear pub just round the corner which is of a similar vintage. The new development was named after two houses called Princes Place, between which lay the access point off Kennington Park Road, hence it became Princes Square. Only in 1937 was the name changed to Cleaver Square to reflect the original owner of the land. Thus we now find an oblong square within the Kennington Triangle not far from The Oval.
As squares go it's really nice, as befits a rim of Georgian terraces surrounding a central garden. I say garden but it's more a very large area of tarmac flanked by plane trees, ideal if you ever need a location for a multi-player boules tournament. The central space was originally used for grazing (17th century), then a formal garden with an outer path (18th century), then a nursery with greenhouses (19th century). Plans build to rows of garages (20th century) were thwarted by taking the plot into council control, although it soon ended up somewhat unloved and only following a lottery grant was it prettified and benched (almost 21st century). I imagine it's fairly featureless in winter, but the current carpet of orange leaves makes taking a seat well worthwhile.
A majority of the 60 houses are listed, as befits smart brick terraces with sash windows, mansard roofs and elegant arched fanlights. These are doors you could hang a wreath on and conjure up a Christmas card, as indeed I did one year. There are also just enough doors that there's always one opening or closing somewhere, like a middle class farce, although a lot of this turns out to be builders and plasterers refitting a kitchen or scoping out a basement. Watch for long enough and a mummy will emerge with a carseat while a natty couple unload groceries from the boot of their custard yellow jeep. Parking spaces have been at a premium ever since that catastrophic garages decision in 1927.
There are only two non-residential intrusions. One is the City & Guilds of London Art School which is housed in purpose-built Victorian studios and 1930s warehouse space facing Kennington Park Road. The student entrance is however up Cleaver Square, the connecting road now only passable by bike, where you may find blokes in berets vaping outside a modern atrium behind a snazzy black gate. The other non-house is The Prince of Wales, part of the same independent pub chain as the Mayflower in Rotherhithe, which has graced a corner plot since 1901. Outside it's all hanging baskets and prized tables, while inside has a provincial vibe with pouting portraits flouncing across every wall. I don't know if the landlord always angles the swiper downwards so you can't see how much you're paying but no way was the cider worth that much.
After some of the drab flatpack squares I've been to in this series it's a pleasure to visit one with a proper history and a splash of class. It's so sophisticated an award-winning author has even written a novel about it - Last Days in Cleaver Square - in which a retired poet is haunted by the ghost of a Spanish dictator. That's not the book that won the award, obviously. Best of all the square boasts a former Prime Minister amongst its former residents, and maybe not one you'd expect. It is in fact John Major who bought a house here a couple of months after losing the 1997 General Election, not just because it's peak Kennington but mainly because it's less than ten minutes walk from The Oval. He's no longer here, he majors in his big house in Huntingdon, but Cleaver Square still definitely cuts it.
