Story and photos by Nicole Cordier
The sounds of metal, wood, and occasionally, skin hitting concrete fill the dimly lit vault. The walls are covered with vibrant street art, one artist’s work overlapping another’s to create a sprawling gallery of graffiti. In the corner, a group of young men recline along the cool concrete, protected from the sun by the boardwalk above. Sitting with skateboards beneath their feet, they seem to be the center of this park. Younger boarders ride up to ask for help with a particularly difficult trick or to bum some water. A railing on the opposite side of the park protects tourists from the action. Observers line every inch of the barrier, cameras clicking and video rolling. This is the Southbank Undercroft, the birthplace of London’s skateboard culture, and it is in danger of being destroyed in order to make room for a commercial shopping center.
Skateboarders have been landing tricks and taking spills in the Undercroft since the 1970s. The colorful concrete park is located beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall event center, near the River Thames and the iconic Ferris wheel known as the London Eye. This overhang shelters the world’s longest inhabited “found space” skatepark. A found space skatepark is an area not originally intended for skateboarding, which has been transformed by skaters into a functional park. The Undercroft’s vibrant community of street skaters has kept this particular location alive for over 40 years.
Street skating differs from skating in a traditional park in that riders enjoy creating new lines, also known as routes, and repurposing the original architecture of the space into a park. Unlike skaters at a conventional park, these boarders prefer to skate with more spontaneity and flair. While there are other skateparks in the country, this area is the only found space location in all of England. Because skateboarding has been banned across many of London’s public areas, this park is one of the last places where street skaters can come to express themselves and meet like-minded individuals.
“I cannot begin to explain how much I owe skateboarding and what it has given me creatively. It taught me to look at the city differently and has connected me to artists globally,” says the man who goes by D*face, one of London’s renowned street artists and a familiar face at Southbank.
Generations of skateboarders have grown up under this overhang, and veterans like D*face have helped to shape both younger skaters as well as the space itself. Its unique, unplanned location provides shelter from London’s frequent rain, but more importantly serves as a cultural center and home for the city’s street boarders. This park hosts a rich cultural convention of skateboards, BMX riders, graffiti artists, and those who come to watch them. “Without skateboarding I would not be the artist I am today; without the Southbank I would not have been a skateboarder,” says D*face.
The Undercroft’s location, so near to many iconic London spaces and sights, creates great visibility and encourages positive interactions between skaters and tourists, who often stop to watch the action behind the metal railings around the park’s entrance.
This collaborative, creative space was originally intended to be an architectural feature of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The park is located along the boardwalk near the Thames in London’s riverside cultural area known as the Southbank Centre. The Centre was established in the 1950s, when the Festival of Britain, a national exhibition to celebrate post-war United Kingdom, was held along the river’s southern bank. Its intended purpose was to create an area for the people of London to engage in arts and culture. Even before the Festival of Britain, this riverbank had been historically known as a local hub for performance and entertainment. Southbank’s reputation as a location for amusement and culture dates back to medieval times. Throughout the years it has hosted bear-baiting, pleasure gardens, and more recently, the National Theatre, Jubilee Gardens, and the Royal Festival Hall.
In 2013, after serving many years as a hub for street culture, the Southbank Undercroft is in danger of closure. The Southbank Centre, the complex of artistic venues that owns the space, recently announced a remodel of the area that would uproot the Undercroft skating community from its historic home and transform this long-time cultural hotspot into a row of shops. According to the Southbank Centre’s website, the aim for this remodeling project is to “transform this part of the site… to deliver a larger and more ambitious arts and cultural programme for all Southbank Centre’s visitors to enjoy,” creating tension between the Southbank Centre and the community of skaters who have called, and continue to call the Undercroft their home.
Judy Kelly, artistic director for the Southbank Centre, has released a video statement regarding the remodeling plans. In the statement, she explains that the Undercroft “has been a very neglected site, and it needs a lot of money to keep going, and also to turn it into the next thing that will allow even more people to use it.” She claims that her goal is not only to increase revenue generated from this area, but to enhance the area’s cultural impact as well.
But for many of the Undercroft’s devoted skaters and longtime fans, cultural impact is in the eye of the beholder. Long Live Southbank, an organization founded by London skateboarding cinematographer Henry Edwards-Wood, is aimed at stopping this development and is fighting to preserve the space and its long history as a cornerstone of London street life.
“Long Live Southbank really came about because we realized we needed one unified voice to represent the skateboarders,” explains Wood, who has been skating the Undercroft since he was 12. “Everyone I now call a close friend I met at Southbank. It’s a community that is driven by the history there, and that’s what engages the young kids. It’s staple of the London skateboard scene.”
The concern over the fate of the Undercroft isn’t just a local matter—the issue has attracted international attention. One of the world’s most famous skateboarding icons, Tony Hawk, recently reached out to Mike McCart, director of the Southbank Centre, with an official letter of support for Long Live Southbank. In this letter, Hawk urged McCart to “please preserve the integrity of Southbank, a sanctuary for skateboards, and an important piece of London history.”
Hawk is not the only professional skater to publically support preserving the park. The Long Live Southbank website’s supporter page features many professional skateboarders’ and BMX bikers’ messages of solidarity. A comment submitted by Rob Smith, a professional rider for the Death Skateboarders merchandise line, reads, “After traveling the world as a professional skateboarder, I have never come across such an iconic, historic, progressive landmark as the Southbank Undercroft.”
Although this area holds huge importance to skateboarders, it is also a meaningful location to Londoners who don’t skate. On any given day, the Undercroft teems with locals and tourists alike. At night, the area often hosts musical events of all types, connecting the community to this space.
Hannah Feldman, a volunteer for the Long Live Southbank campaign, has long fought for the protection of this site. “This is somewhere people can interact with a culture they may not otherwise experience,” says Feldman. “There is nowhere else like it in the whole of the UK.”
The Southbank Undercroft was recently declared an Asset of Community Value by the local community, but this status doesn’t protect the area from redevelopment. It only ensures that the skatepark must be considered when discussing the remodel plans, and the title also gives the Long Live Southbank organization six months to raise funds and purchase the property in the event that the land is being sold. In the coming months, as decisions are made regarding the proposed £120 million renovation, local skateboarders will learn whether they will be able to continue enjoying their unique space that they discovered and built, or if it will be transformed into a shopping center in the name of “enhancing the culture” of Southbank.

Gallery • 1 Photos

Tourists and locals spend a sunny afternoon watching skaters perform tricks.