In the mid 80’s a famous squat occupied for a few years (1984-86 at least) a five story castle-like building here on Old Kent Road: The Ambulance Station. The place consisted of a performance space, a recording studio and several other art studios, a meeting space on the first floor, and a large performance space and bar on the ground floor.
The place became notorious as a venue for live music. Among the greatest names who took the stage here are the likes of Butthole Surfers, The Swans, Primal Scream, Pulp, and Jesus and Mary Chain in their first London gig (that allegedly ended up in a riot). Nazi Skinheads from the nearby Millwall headquarters in South Bermondsey often attacked the squat and disrupted the gigs, once even stabbed a musician on stage. From that point on, the in-house band Bourbonese Qualk performed behind coils of barbed wire, armed with crowbars and baseball bats – an industrial setup that worked well as a form of self defence, too.
The building has been demolished, whereas the nearby pub, the old Thomas a Becket, recently used by the Rock Island bar and grill, was turned into a Vietnamese restaurant one year ago or so.
Address: 306 Old Kent Rd, London SE1 5EW
@Rockandrollogist 
In fact the building is still there and the ground floor was most recently used as an architectural salvage shop, now apparently defunct. The firemens’ flats upstairs have been refurbished and appear to be occupied. Your photo is of the car wash and former Thomas a Beckett pub (now the Viet Quan restaurant) next door.
In addition, while Bourbonese Qualk did live in the station for a while, their website vastly overstates their involvement. They occupied one floor and occasionally played, however most of the gigs at the station were organised by an entirely different group of squatters living on the floor below.
Those interested can see the building as it is now on Google maps here: https://tinyurl.com/muxd76v3
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Thanks for your contribution and clarification! Reading about it, I had understood that the building was adjacent to the pub, hence I thought it was where the car washer is. Have you ever been to any gig there?
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Went to gigs there, put on gigs there, played there, helped run the cafe and I was even briefly squatting there.
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