Inside Peckham’s decaying Caroline Gardens Chapel

Just off the Old Kent Road is a large set of almshouses built just under 200 years ago and in the middle is a large and atmospherically decaying chapel building.Built in the relatively empty countryside in around 1827-33, the almshouses were laid out in a half-square, with the chapel in the centre, and it was known as the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum, as a respite home for retired pub landlords. Although called an Asylum, that’s for the meaning it had back then