History of the Old Kent Road Mural

The massive ceramic mural you are approaching depicts the history of the Old Kent Road through a series of high-relief panels. It was designed and completed in nineteen sixty-five by Adam Kossowski, a Polish artist who had arrived in Britain as a refugee after surviving a Soviet labor camp. Spanning one thousand square feet, this remains his largest secular work, showcasing his unique approach of crafting roughly two thousand irregularly shaped tiles that he assembled with the deliberate care of a stained glass window. The mural covers the exterior of what was once the North Peckham Civic Centre, though the building now serves as a church. Kossowski used these ceramic tiles to tell a chronological story, starting with the road as a Roman trackway and moving through centuries of local history. You can see scenes depicting medieval pilgrims, the uprising led by Jack Cade in fourteen fifty, and the industrial growth of the Victorian era. It is a rare, permanent record of a road that has served as the primary entrance to London for nearly two thousand years.