The Roundhouse

Alec Ramsdale

My interest in the Camden Roundhouse dates back to 1942 when, from the box-boy’s corner of Kentish Town Junction box I looked across at that fascinating roof and wondered about the building’s past. I found Harry Jack’s article in Journal Vol.2 No. 12 most enlightening. I would however confirm that the Camden ‘A’ shed and the Roundhouse are two completely separate premises, as later pointed out by David Hanson. ‘A’ shed was situated on the west side of Oval Road, Camden Town.

W.&A. Gilbey’s centenary history ‘Four in Hand’ (1957), written by Gilbey Director Alec Gold provides the following information on ‘A’ shed and the Roundhouse: ‘The site belonged to Lord Southampton who granted a building lease in May 1839 to Thomas Pickford and Joseph Baxendale who in August 1840 purchased the freehold, undertaking to build a warehouse on the site. “… and to maintain a strip 25 feet wide adjoining the Birmingham Railway as a shrubbery or plantation”.

Reference is made to a plan dated 1849 which shows ‘A’ shed as ‘Messrs Pickfords Warehouses’.

By 1869 the warehouse appears to have become railway property, with Gilbeys taking a lease on 25^th September 1869 for twenty-one years at £2,100 p.a. with repayment over ten years, plus

interest, of the £10,000 to be spent by the railway on alterations. (Probably the boiler and square brick chimney formed part of these).

‘… the next move was a lease of the Roundhouse, by now a goods warehouse, with arches 2, 3, 4 and 5 on the site of No.2 bond, for 19 years from 24^th June 1871 (lease 28^th September 1876)’.

In the mid-1960s W.&A. Gilbey Ltd became part of International Distillers & Vintners Ltd (IDV) subsequently moving from Camden Town to Harlow, Essex. Included in the historical archive material transferred to Harlow were ex-railway plans of the Roundhouse and the Bonny Street arches beneath Camden Town (NLR ) station, the latter providing stabling for around 70 horses for their delivery fleet until 1914.

Regrettably, although it reposed just a few feet from my desk, I never copied the Roundhouse drawing, but thanks to David Hansom’s list of the L&B  plans on microfilm I feel sure that it was LMR ref: 12727, referring to conversion from engine house to goods warehouse, which would be the only plan of interest to Gilbeys. Some details were picked out in colour, emphasising the delicate tracery of the ironwork, a marked contrast to the starkly functional GNR  shed from which I operated during my time on the footplate.