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Camden Theatre / Camden Hippodrome / Royal Camden / Music Machine / Camden Palace / Koko, Camden High Street and Crowndale Road, Camden Town.

Above - The Camden Palace in 2006, now renamed Koko - Courtesy Anthony Pearson

The Camden Theatre was built by W.G.R. Sprague at a cost of £50,000 and opened in 1901 with a seating capacity of 2,434. The Stage was 75' wide, 60' high and 40' deep. In 1914 the Theatre was renamed The Camden Hippodrome and by 1924 the Theatre was in use as a Cinema.

Right - The Camden Theatre 1900 - From 'London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-1950' Diana Howard.

In the late 60s until 1972 the BBC occupied the building, using it as a Radio Studio.

The Theatre was substantially altered internally in 1981 for Nightclub use and renamed The Camden Palace.

In 2006 the Theatre is being run as a Nightclub and music venue called Koko.

Despite radical alterations the auditorium still looks pretty much like the original except for stair cases joining the circles and the stalls and the Gallery being leveled off to form a large public room. The stalls have been leveled off and now form a dance floor which reaches into the former stage, and there are now balconies over the stage itself on either side.

Right - The Camden Palace 2004 M.L.

Despite all this the building is capable of being restored to Theatrical use, albeit at considerable expense. The building is Grade II listed.

Katty King, daughter of T. C. King, the well-known tragedian, and wife of Arthur Lloyd, was born in Camden Town.

Also see Bedford Music Hall, Camden here...

Camden Town and St Pancras,
From 'The Face of London' by Harold P. Clunn, 1956.

Camden Town, forming the central portion of the metropolitan borough of St Pancras, is another busy traffic centre, being the junction of the trolley-bus routes from Holloway, Highgate, Hampstead, Tottenham Court Road, and Holborn.

Left - Programme for 'Romeo and Juliet' at the Camden theatre 1905 - Click to see entire programme - Warning Large Images.

The construction of the now defunct North London tramways was begun in October 1870 from Holloway Road near the Nag's Head along the Camden Road to St Pancras and Camden Town, and thence to Euston Road. The entire tramway system of North London was electrified by the London County Council in 1906 - 08, but this was replaced about 1936 by trolley buses.

Camden Town, which was begun in 1791, was named after Lord Camden, the ground landlord, who was created a peer in 1765, taking the style of Baron Camden of Camden Place, in Kent. The following year he became Lord Chancellor. In 1791 this land, which was then in Kentish Town, was let for building 1400 houses, and here a few years later the pleasant fields were mapped out for streets. Several builders then set to work, but little development took place until about 1804, except in Camden High Street, which was originally called Southampton Place.

Right - Programme for 'Babes in the Wood' at the Camden Theatre 1905.

The uniformly-built houses with shops at the southern entrance to Camden High Street display a marked contrast at the present day to the former village simplicity of the Southampton Place of a century and a half ago. Close to the spot where now stands the statue of Richard Cobden erected in 1868 by public subscription, was the turnpike gate, adjoining which there was a weighbridge for determining the amount of toll to be charged. Practically all traces of the small houses and shops which lined Camden High Street in 1793 have been obliterated. The densely populated quarter of Kentish Town to the north of Camden Town, extending to Highgate, is said to derive its name from its foundation by Walter and Thomas de Cantilupe, and to denote a vulgar appellation of Cantilupe Town, of which that great family were the original owners.

To the south of Camden High Street is Mornington Crescent, built early in the nineteenth century, and in front of which until 1926 was a semicircular garden overlooking Hampstead Road. Upon this site was then erected the extensive factory of Messrs Carreras, cigarette manufacturers.

Right - Camden Palace Side Elevation 2004 M.L.

The building is faced with concrete and is six stories high. It consists of a central wing, adorned by a row of twelve decorated columns, and two side wings overlooking Hampstead Road. Opposite the Carreras building is Harrington Square, which was partly destroyed in the blitz and here a large bombed site is now covered by a new block of flats erected by the St Pancras Borough Council. Ampthill Square and Oakley Square on the east side of Hampstead Road contain large houses of the early Victorian style, erected about 1840, with porticoes and faced with yellow brick.

To the west of Hampstead Road is Cumberland Market on the north side of which are some distinctive blocks of artisan dwellings erected about 1933. It is the principal market for hay and straw, and was removed here in the reign of George IV from the Haymarket in the West End. Its old houses have disappeared in the great blitz of 1940 together with much slum property in this immediate locality. Between Drummond Street and Euston Road the building line on the cast side of Hampstead Road formerly narrowed into a dangerous bottleneck which exercised a stranglehold on the traffic coming from Tottenham Court Road. In order to provide space for the London County Council tramways in 1906 the building line was set back a considerable distance and brought into conformity with that of the wider portion of Hampstead Road.

At the junction of Hampstead Road with Seymour Street is Crowndale Road, on the north side of which is the Working Men's College, founded by Frederick Denison Maurice in 1854. Crowndale Road leads into St Pancras Road, originally known as Fig Lane.

Left - The Camden Palace 2004 M.L.

A walk through this street will bring us to Goldington Crescent and St Pancras old church, dating from about 1180. It was enlarged in 1848 by taking the open space occupied by the old square tower into the body of the church. A spire was then placed on the south side of the building. Seven acres of the burial-ground with the adjoining burial-ground of St Giles's, overlooking St Pancras Road, were converted into a public garden in 1877, the rest being acquired by the Midland Railway. Close by formerly stood the old St Pancras town hall and public library which were destroyed in the air raids and have since been razed to the ground. It was a gloomy-looking building of red brick without any claim to distinction. St Pancras Square, which dated back to 1847, was the first block of workers' flats built in London. It was erected by the Metropolitan Association for improving the Dwellings of the Industrial Classes founded in 1841. The dwellings were a show place and were visited by the Prince Consort in 1848. Other notable visitors who came to see this early experiment in social welfare included Gladstone, Charles Kingsley, Lord Shaftesbury, Charles Dickens and the Duke of Wellington. St Pancras Square has vanished completely and its site is now used by the St Pancras Borough Council as a building-materials depot. St Pancras derives its name from a youthful nobleman of Phrygia who suffered martyrdom at Rome by order of Diocletian.

Until about two hundred years ago St Pancras was a spa containing mineral springs, which attracted many visitors, and in those days the Fleet River flowed past the church. Not only were digestive troubles alleged to be removed by a cure at St Pancras, but even leprosy, scurvy, and cancer. Mr Richard Bristow, a goldsmith of Bride Lane, Fleet Street, advertised in 1730 delivery to any part of London either the St Pancras or the Bristol waters at six shillings per dozen bottles. St Pancras Wells boasted a pump room and a house of entertainment in 1730, together with an uninterrupted view of the Hampstead and Highgate Hills, as well as of the lesser elevation of Primrose Hill. The site of St Pancras Wells is now occupied by British Railways, Midland Region, and it would be difficult to indicate the exact spot where it once stood.

The metropolitan borough of St Pancras extends from Islington to Marylebone east to west, and from Holborn to Hampstead and Hornsey south to north. Its population, which was 36,000 in 1801 had increased to 211,366 by 1921 but has since decreased to 198,113 in 1931. The estimated population for 1949 was 141,430.

Text From 'The Face of London' - Harold P. Clunn, 1956.