The History of London's Victoria Benches Spot Expertly Told By Lucien Clarke

In another stellar installment of Quartersnacks' and writer Farran Golding's "Favorite Spots" article, Lucien Clarke talks about the Victoria Benches (R.I.P.) in London and his part in Palace Skateboards' 2017 video, Palasonic. Pour up a cup of tea, these are always great.

From QS' site: "Although good ledge spots are hardly synonymous with British skateboarding, it’s a surprising reality that they were missing from even the country’s capital until the turn of the millennium. Such was the landscape of London until, in the late 1990s, heaven was discovered in an unassuming patch of greenery just down the road from Victoria Station. Jacob Sawyer’s wonderful “Ode To Victoria Benches” story for Slam City Skates pinpoints the spot as having been discovered somewhere around 1997. The Blueprint Skateboards team and friends would go on to localize it, with the benches appearing in Waiting For The World, Headcleaner, and First Broadcast."

"Aside from the mystery of what the benches were made of, one of the most intriguing aspects of the their history is their function as a nexus point. As Sawyer succinctly puts it: “Victoria Benches became Toby Shuall’s spiritual home, a focal point for Nick Jensen’s progression and the place Lucien Clarke learned to skate” — and would revive from a period of forced hibernation in the spot’s waning days leading up to Palace’s Palasonic video."

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