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If you look carefully a very unusual set of small commemorative plaques can be found on the central half mile of Kennington Road.  Many of the plane trees that line the pavement on the west side of this road hold a small metal label, each one naming an Apollo astronaut.  The origin of this group memorial is uncertain. It's been here since at least 1992, some labels have been lost over time, and it's not known for certain what comprised the original full set.

Londonist, and via them, Smoke, supply a credible, partial, origin story, which is: in or before 1990 the British Interplanetary Society (based in nearby South Lambeth Road) erected 24 of these labels in these trees, one for each Apollo astronaut.

We'd like to understand how the astronauts were chosen. The Apollo program ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968, and the last in 1972. There were at least 38 Apollo astronauts. Of these, only 24 travelled beyond low earth orbit (LEO), the only people ever to have done so. Of these, 12 walked on the moon, the other 12 did not. 

We have seen 17 of these tree labels (IRL or photos), of which 11 name moonwalkers and 6 name non-moonwalking, LEO-escapers. Examining the trees on the west side of this road, some are very young and likely post-date the first sighting of the memorial, but may replace trees which were mature when the memorial was erected. There are also some long stretches with no pavement trees, which may or may not always have been treeless.  However, 2026, we counted and there are indeed 24 trees on the main part of this road, between the junctions at Brook Drive and at Black Prince Road, the section in which all the surviving labels are to be found.

It seems likely that the original installation consisted of a name label for each of the 24 LEO-escaping astronauts, each attached to one of 24 mature trees on this section of road at that time. If this supposition is correct it means the labels which we have never seen include those for half of the non-moonwalkers but only 1 of the moonwalkers. This skew looks improbable and may suggest that we have misunderstood how the names were chosen. 

When we read that it was the BIS in nearby South Lambeth Road that had erected these names, it made sense, except, why was this street chosen, not one closer to their base?  But then, they knew they needed 24 mature trees - that's a lot.  Perhaps they started looking close to their office and widened their search outwards, with Kennington Road being the first group of trees they came across that met their requirements. Or perhaps they chose the site first and there were 24 labels because there were 24 trees.  We can only guess.

Each label is screwed to the south face of a tree trunk, at about 2.5m high, sensibly out of anyone's (unassisted) reach. The sequence appears to be random but perhaps we are missing something. Putting small name labels high up in trees is not, in our wide experience, a common means of commemoration (and seems a particularly weird choice for astronauts) but - each to their own. 

One well-known, and very evident, trait of plane trees is that they shed their bark. Given this feature it's perhaps surprising that most labels remain roughly horizontal and that only 13 of the original 24 have been lost. Our DIY consultant points out that the labels are attached with screws (not nails) and opines that the screws are probably very long, but, not being galvanised, they may be nearing the end of their lives.

We've numbered, from south to north, the 17 labels for which photos exist. We photographed the Irwin, Duke and Schmitt labels in July 2017; another 9 in March 2026. We have not oriented the labels to the horizontal, to retain the information about the extent to which they have been displaced. Where Smoke have a photo of a label that is now lost (5), we have gratefully used their photo (and we think Smoke probably did realign their photos so the labels all appear horizontal). 

The sequence of the Smoke list of labels aligns almost exactly with our south-north list (all but Armstrong) so, in the absence of any other information, we have placed the pins for the Smoke labels in that sequence. 

Here below is the list of the 24 LEO-escaping astronauts, in the north-south sequence.  The 7 for which we think labels originally existed, but for which we have no evidence - we've added to the end of the list (Conrad - Stafford), but have not placed a pin on the map, since we have no idea where they were.

In this list: (M) indicates a moonwalker; (S) that we have used the Smoke photo; (L) that in 2026 we did not find the label.

01 Cernan (M)
02 Young (M)
03 Armstrong (M)
04 Aldrin (M) (S) (L)
05 Gordon (S) (L)
06 Bean (M)
07 Haise
08 Swigert (S) (L)
09 Roosa
10 Shepard (M) (S) (L)
11 Scott (M)
12 Mitchell (M)
13 Worden
14 Irwin (M)
15 Duke (M)
16 Schmitt (M) (L)
17 Borman (S) (L)
18 Conrad (M) (L)
19 Anders (L)
20 Collins (L)
21 Evans (L)
22 Lovell (L)
23 Mattingly (L)
24 Stafford (L)

If you have any information about the lost labels, or about the origin of this unique group memorial, please contact us.

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