Moving to London last summer, I didn’t really know what to expect. Don’t get me wrong – I’d visited the city plenty of times and for fairly extended periods so it wasn’t a completely new experience, but I was fairly settled in the North and the capital had enough negatives going for it to put me off a fair bit. I did, however, know enough to be sure that I had to live within walking distance of Stockwell Skatepark.

Of all the places I’d visit to skate when I was staying here Brixton Beach was the one with the best vibes, something which didn’t change when I became a regular visitor. A non stop session saw the local’s hyping each other daily, tunes were blasted from the bench above the bowl and the place became my local skatepark, meeting point and social club all in one.

The park itself isn’t the easiest to skate. While the looming transitions and tectonic cracks of previous eras have been smoothed and mellowed by successive restorations, it is still mostly the long-time locals that you will see hitting the various bumps, hips and whippy transitions in one run and manage to maintain speed. Conditioning your legs and working out the park’s many but difficult lines is one of the best things about the place, along with the choice of quarters varying in height and steepness.

Jack Moore melon grab. Photo: Ashley Walker

With visits from Thrasher and Polar last year and with BMT poised for global domination, the park is still riding high in its middle years – if you’ve never been, get down and get some at a piece of living skate history. In the meantime get hyped on a lengthy selection of footage and photo’s from Brixton Beach, along with an interview with Friends of Stockwell Skatepark’s Matt Gold…

Sam Roberts frontside rock slide. Photo: Toby Shaw