The Roundhouse

Known originally as the Great Circular Engine House, or the Luggage Engine House, what we now know as the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm Road is still a distinctive landmark. Now Grade II listed, it has been described as one of the city’s great industrial monuments.

When Parliament approved a plan for a London & Birmingham Railway in 1833, Robert Stephenson (of ‘Rocket’ fame) was appointed to oversee what was to become the country’s largest civil engineering project. London’s first rail terminal, Euston station, opened in 1837, and when the first direct train left Euston for Birmingham the journey time was cut from 12 to just five hours.

But there was a problem. Euston was at the bottom of a shallow incline, and engines heading north did not yet have the power to make the climb to Camden. For the next six years, huge winding gear had to be used to haul trains up the hill on cables. The area just north of Euston, including Camden Town and Chalk Farm, consequently became vitally important. It was here that Stephenson built his rail yards and commissioned the construction of a ‘round house’ for maintaining this equipment, and for storing goods engines.

Construction began in 1846. The interior space was divided into 24 bays, with a
massive turntable in the centre that locomotives could be rolled onto, before being spun around and rolled to a bay for servicing or storage. 160 feet in diameter, it had a huge conical slate roof supported on 24 cast-iron columns. When completed, the Roundhouse was hailed as an outstanding feat of Victorian engineering.

But already by 1869 the building was no longer needed for its original purpose (technology had moved on and engines had now become too long for the turntable) and it became a warehouse and a factory. Its longest continuous period of use, the 50 years beginning in 1871, was as a bonded warehouse for gin distillers W & A Gilbey Ltd. In 1964 the structure was listed as a building of architectural and historic interest.

 After standing disused for many years, in 1960 the playwright Arnold Wesker decided

it would make a good centre for the arts and founded Centre 42. Later in the 60s it became a leading rock venue, with appearances by bands such as Pink Floyd, the Stones and even the Doors, who played their only UK gig here. It enjoyed popularity again in the late 70s with the arrival of punk, but by 1983 it had closed its doors again.
That same year Camden Council and the GLC bought the Roundhouse. For 12 years it lay empty, but in 1996 it was bought by a local businessman who wanted to turn it into an arts centre for young people. A ‘Rebuild the Roundhouse’ campaign was launched to raise the 28 million pounds needed for the project. It was completed in 2006, and the centre boasts a 1,700-seat performance space, as well as a variety of other performing arts studios, workshops etc.

References:

The London Encyclopedia ed. Christopher Hibbert et al (2008)

The London Nobody Knows Geoffrey Fletcher (1962)

Spectacular Vernacular David Long (2006)