Life in the Elephant 1948 and 2005- Previous Exhibition This photographic exhibition captured the Elephant and Castle in two remarkable periods of change. It ran at the Cuming Museum from October 18 to January 14 and then continued at the London College of Communications until February 17 2006.
Images and oral history recordings from the project can still be seen at the LITE online gallery
 Life in the Elephant - Online Gallery (Broadband friendly)
Life in the Elephant - Online Gallery (Dial up friendly)
You can also explore historic images of the area from Southwark's Local History Library
Elephant and Castle - Historic Photographs
Project background
Elephant and Castle is changing. But this area of South London has always been a place of transience. Through a mixture of historic and contemporary photographs, this exhibition captures the people and places of the area.
Photographs taken by Bert Hardy in 1948 are shown alongside images captured as part of a young people's photography project in 2005. Hardy's photographs show the area as it was just after the Second World War - children play on bombsites while horse dealers gather for market.
Bert Hardy said, "Everywhere I look and most of the time I look, I see photographs". The pictures taken in 2005 were inspired by Hardy's work. They aim to capture the area around the Heygate Estate before it's transformed in the area's forthcoming £1.5 billion regeneration.
The exhibition featured
- Twenty of Bert Hardy's images from his Life in the Elephant 1948 series.
- A collection of the best work of the local young people participating in the 2005 project.
- A series of portraits of Heygate residents taken by fellow resident and photographer, Mark Chilvers. These are accompanied by quotes from interviews about experiences of living on the estate.
Online learning resources
An online learning resource for primary teachers teaching "What was it like in World War Two?" and "Britain since 1930" is available as part of the online gallery. Resources include worksheets, photographs and documents to download, all relating to the Elephant and Castle area.
The project
The Life in the Elephant project was a partnership project with Elephant & Castle Regeneration and was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. We also worked closely with intoMedia and Kickstart on the Heygate Estate.
For more information about this project contact
Zoe Simone
Elephant & Castle Regeneration
Tel: 020 7525 4919
Contact us
The Cuming Museum
Tel: 020 7525 2332 |