Roundhouse (venue)

For other uses, see Roundhouse (disambiguation).

Roundhouse, London

Roundhouse main entrance
Location	Chalk Farm, London, England
Coordinates
Public transit	Chalk Farm Underground
Capacity	3,300 standing. 1,700 seated
Construction
Built	1846
Opened	1964–1983 (as Centre 42) 1996–2004 (as Roundhouse) 2006 (reopened as Roundhouse)
Renovated	2004/2005
Architect	Robert Stephenson, Robert B. Dockray (1846) John McAslan & Partners (2006)
Website
www.roundhouse.org.uk

The Roundhouse is a performing arts and concert venue situated at the Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England.

It was originally built in 1847 by the London and North Western Railway as a roundhouse, a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was only used for this purpose for about a decade. After being used as a warehouse for a number of years, the building fell into disuse just before the Second World War. It reopened twenty-five years later, in 1964, as a performing arts venue, when the playwright Arnold Wesker established the Centre 42 Theatre Company and adapted the building as a theatre.

This large circular structure has hosted various promotions, such as the launch of the underground paper International Times in 1966, The Doors' only UK appearance in 1968, and the Greasy Truckers Party in 1972.

The Greater London Council ceded control of the building to the Camden London Borough Council in 1983. By that time, Centre 42 had run out of funds and the building remained unused until a local businessman purchased the building in 1996 and performing arts shows returned. It was closed again in 2004 for a multi-million pound redevelopment. On 1 June 2006, the Argentine show Fuerzabruta opened at the new Roundhouse.

Since 2006, Roundhouse has hosted the BBC Electric Proms and numerous iTunes Festivals, as well as award ceremonies such as the BT Digital Music Awards and the Vodafone Live Music Awards. In 2009, Bob Dylan performed a concert, and iTunes promoted a music iTunes Festival, at the venue. In line with the continuing legacy of avant-garde productions, No Fit State Circus performed Tabu during which the audience were encouraged to move around the performance space.

History

The Great Circular Engine House, or the Luggage Engine House, c.1850.

The Roundhouse was built in 1846 as a turntable engine shed (or roundhouse) for the London and Birmingham Railway, and was known as the Great Circular Engine House, or the Luggage Engine House. The original building was built by Branson & Gwyther, using designs by architects Robert B. Dockray and Robert Stephenson. Within ten years locomotives became too long for the building to accommodate, and the Roundhouse was used for various other purposes. The longest period of use (50 years, beginning in 1871) was as a bonded store for Gin distillers W & A Gilbey Ltd.

In 1964 the premises were transferred to Centre 42, which prepared a scheme to convert the building into "a permanent cultural centre with a theatre, cinema, art gallery and workshops, committee rooms for local organisations, library, youth club and restaurant dance-hall". This was estimated to cost between £300,000 and £600,000 (£NaN–NaN in 2024), and was supported by "well-known actors, playwrights, authors, musicians and others". In 1966 the Roundhouse became an arts venue, after the freehold was taken up by the then new Greater London Council. On 15 October 1966 Soft Machine and Pink Floyd appeared at the launch of the underground newspaper International Times (IT). During the next decade the building became a significant venue for UK Underground music events Middle Earth and Implosion. Many of these were hosted and promoted by Jeff Dexter. Other bands playing at the Roundhouse during this period included Gass, The Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, The Yardbirds, Zoot Money's Dantalian's Chariot, David Bowie, The Sinceros, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Incredible String Band, The Doors with Jefferson Airplane, Ramones, The Clash, Elkie Brooks, and Motörhead, who appeared at the Roundhouse on 20 July 1975.

The building was used in 1996 to film the promotional video for the Manic Street Preachers' single "A Design for Life" prior to the start of redevelopment. Promotional videos for the singles "Handbags and Gladrags" by Stereophonics (2001), and "Burn Burn" by Lostprophets (2003), were also filmed there.

Patti Smith performing at Roundhouse, 17 May 2007

The Roundhouse has also been used for theatre, and has had two periods of theatrical glory, with musicals such as Catch My Soul (1969). Under administrator George Hoskins, the first phase also featured experimental theatre productions, such as the Living Theatre production of 1776 and other plays directed by Peter Brook. The once controversial nude revue Oh! Calcutta! opened in July 1970, and started a run of nearly four thousand performances in London.

The Greater London Council passed the building to the Camden London Borough Council in 1983, and it was closed as a venue due to lack of funds. The building lay empty until it was purchased for £6m (£NaN in 2024) in 1996 by the Norman Trust led by the philanthropist Torquil Norman. In 1998 he set up the Roundhouse Trust and led its redevelopment, with a board of trustees which included musicians Bob Geldof and Suggs, and Monty Python writer Terry Gilliam.

The venue opened for a two-year period to raise awareness and funds for a redevelopment scheme, with former Battersea Arts Centre director Paul Blackman as its director. Shows promoted at this time included the Royal National Theatre's Oh, What a Lovely War!, dancer Michael Clark's comeback performance, percussion extravaganza Stomp, Ken Campbell's twenty-four-hour-long show The Warp and the Argentine De La Guarda's Villa Villa which ran for a year, becoming the venue's longest running show, ending when the building was closed for redevelopment.

The website dance.com, commenting on the redevelopment project, said:

The redeveloped Roundhouse will house up to 3,300 people standing or up to 1,700 seated. It will provide a highly flexible and adaptable performance space that will give artists and audiences opportunities and experiences they cannot find elsewhere. It will accommodate a programme of work that reflects the excitement and diversity of twenty-first-century culture. It will include a wide range of the performing arts including, music, theatre, dance, circus and digital media.

The renovated Roundhouse, designed by architects John McAslan & Partners in association with engineering company Buro Happold, reopened on 1 June 2006, promoting Fuerzabruta. Since 1996 the renovations had cost £27m (£NaN in 2024).

In 2008, Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, transferred his RSC Histories Cycle to the Roundhouse, rearranging the performing space to match the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford upon Avon, where the cycle had first been staged.

On 31 March 2009, the charitable circus group No Fit State began presenting Tabu, utilising the open space at the Roundhouse. On 26 April 2009, Bob Dylan and his band performed at the Roundhouse as part of his 2009 UK tour, and in July 2009 the iTunes Music Festival (supported by Apple Computer) was held at the venue.

In January 2010, the Roundhouse introduced contemporary classical music to its events repertoire when it hosted the Reverb festival, which included performances by the London Contemporary Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Magnets, Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon and the Britten Sinfonia.

For the September 2015 Apple Music Festival, Apple announced an environmental makeover gift for the venue: "making major upgrades to the lighting, plumbing, and HVAC systems; installing recycling and composting bins… offering reusable water bottles instead of plastic ones… to reduce the Roundhouse’s annual carbon emissions by 60 tons, save 60,000 gallons of water a year, and divert more than 1,600 kilograms of waste from landfills".

The Roundhouse Trust

Alongside its role as an arts venue, the Roundhouse is also a registered charity and runs a creative programme for 11-25s through the Roundhouse Trust.

From 2006 to 2012 the Trust taught over 13,000 11- to 25-year-olds in live music, circus, theatre and new media. Courses are held in the Roundhouse Studios, which include a music recording suite, film production rooms, TV and radio studios and rehearsal rooms, all located underneath the Main Space.

Architecture

The Roundhouse during renovation in 2005

The Roundhouse is Grade II* listed. It was declared a National Heritage Site in 2010, when a Transport Trust Heritage Plaque was presented by Prince Michael of Kent. It is regarded as a notable example of mid-19th century railway architecture. The original building, 48 metres (157 ft) in diameter, is constructed in yellow brick and is distinctive for its unusual circular shape and pointed roof. The conical slate roof has a central smoke louvre (now glazed) and is supported by 24 cast-iron Doric columns (arranged around the original locomotive spaces) and a framework of curved ribs. The interior has original flooring and parts of the turntable and fragments of early railway lines.

The 2006 renovation was supported with conservation advice and funding from English Heritage and with grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council England. The project added seven layers of soundproofing to the roof, reinstated the glazed roof-lights, and added the steel and glass New Wing which curves around the north side of the main building, to house the box office, bar and café, an art gallery foyer and offices.

Bibliography

• Bane, M., (1982) White boy singin' the blues, London: Penguin, 1982, ISBN 0-14-006045-6
• Bob Brunning, Blues: The British Connection, Helter Skelter Publishing, London 2002, ISBN 1-900924-41-2 – First edition 1986 – Second edition 1995 Blues in Britain
• Bob Brunning, The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumours and Lies, Omnibus Press London, 1990 and 1998, ISBN 0-7119-6907-8
• Martin Celmins, Peter Green – Founder of Fleetwood Mac, Sanctuary London, 1995, foreword by B.B.King, ISBN 1-86074-233-5
• Fancourt, L., (1989) British blues on record (1957–1970), Retrack Books
• Dick Heckstall-Smith, The safest place in the world: A personal history of British Rhythm and blues, 1989 Quartet Books Limited, ISBN 0-7043-2696-5 – Second Edition : Blowing The Blues – Fifty Years Playing The British Blues, 2004, Clear Books, ISBN 1-904555-04-7
• Christopher Hjort, Strange brew: Eric Clapton and the British blues boom, 1965–1970, foreword by John Mayall, Jawbone 2007, ISBN 1-906002-00-2
• Paul Myers, Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues, Vancouver 2007, GreyStone Books, ISBN 1-55365-200-2
• Harry Shapiro Alexis Korner: The Biography, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London 1997, Discography by Mark Troster, ISBN 0-7475-3163-3
• Schwartz, R. F., (2007) How Britain got the blues : The transmission and reception of American blues style in the United Kingdom Ashgate, ISBN 0-7546-5580-6
• Mike Vernon, The Blue Horizon story 1965–1970 vol.1, notes of the booklet of the Box Set (60 pages)

Discography

• The Beatles: Carnival of Light (1967)
• Greasy Truckers: Greasy Truckers Party (1972) (Hawkwind, Man, Brinsley Schwarz and Magic Michael)
• Hawkwind: "Silver Machine" (recorded 1972)
• Mott the Hoople: "Saturday Gigs" (recorded 1974) contains the line "Float up to the Roundhouse on a Sunday afternoon".
• Man: Back into the Future (recorded 1973)
• Nektar: Sunday Night at London Roundhouse (recorded 1973, released 1974)
• The Amazing ZigZag Concert (recorded 1974, released 2010) Michael Nesmith with Red Rhodes, John Stewart, Help Yourself, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers and Starry Eyed and Laughing.
• Pink Fairies: Live at the Roundhouse 1975 – released in 1982
• Man: Maximum Darkness (recorded 1975)
• UFO Lights Out 1976 (bonus tracks only)
• Man: All's Well That Ends Well (recorded 1977)
• The Damned: The Captain's Birthday Party recorded 1977 – released 1986
• Motörhead: What's Words Worth? (recorded 1978)
• M People: "One Night in Heaven" 1993
• Opeth: The Roundhouse Tapes (recorded 2006)
• The Dresden Dolls: Live at the Roundhouse (recorded 2006)
• The Stranglers Rattus at the Roundhouse (recorded 2007)
• David Gray Draw the Line 2009 (bonus CD only)
• Oasis: Time Flies... 1994–2009 (Disc 4: iTunes Live: London Festival, recorded 2009)
• The King Blues: Live at the Roundhouse (recorded 2011)
• Ed Sheeran: iTunes Festival Day 2 2012
• Devin Townsend: The Retinal Circus (recorded 2012)
• Lady Gaga: Live at iTunes Festival (Artpop: Disc 2, recorded 2013)
• Franz Ferdinand: Live 2014 at the London Roundhouse (recorded 2014)
• Status Quo: Aquostic! Live at the Roundhouse (recorded 2014)

See also

• Fat Girl Gets a Haircut, a play created by artist Mark Storor in collaboration with a cast of teenage actors.

External links

• The Roundhouse official web site
• Made in Camden's web site
• John McAslan and Partners
• The Round House and Open Space theatre companies records are held by the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre and Performance Department.