The whole of Camden Market is now up for sale. I'm sure Jago Hazzard with his newly minted UA-cam billions will be in for it to ensure it retains the indie vibe of old.
@@annother3350 They will, the git that owns it at the moment priced loads of Stallholders out about 5 Years ago (A close friend had a stall in West Yard near the Dock Area for the Canal Taxis and he was given a Week to get out by the Owners after they sold the place he was in out from under him)
even as a relatively young person who began spending time in camden only just under a decade ago, i find the gentrification that has gone on in the area disgusting, and often find myself feeling deep hurt at the recent rampant greed and consumerism that has infected the town, and ironically threatens to.. well, consume the spirit that always made camden feel like home to me. even in 2014-2015, there was a community, a feeling of joy, and a confidence like nothing else i have known from the knowledge that as a massive misfit kid, i could go there, and no one cared. no one had any preconceived ideas of why i chose to dress or express myself in the way i did, and i couldn’t wait to experience it as an adult. now, i am approaching adulthood, and honestly every time i end up in camden, i find myself missing that feeling. it feels like a shell and while the gems of hope and reality are still present, it feels so much less safe and real than it did. i really hope that camden still has soul in it yet and that the corporations that have bought much of it out will not destroy it and move on as they have done to so many of london’s cultural hubs, but even more so i hope that as a city we still are able to slowly establish new and open minded grassroots hubs for counterculture and open expression, without the generic and sanitised, world destroying produce currently filling our streets! apologies for the rant, but i feel it’s an important sentiment!
Camden has been colonised by the bean counters who don't understand that you cannot buy the vibe of something that grew organically over many decades. They have plonked down their shiny palaces of overpriced tat on a shambolic but charming thoroughfare.
Having just commented above, I saw this. Sadly, in today's commercial world, there is a tide which sweeps over the old world, and the real people in it. In the 80s, a group of us saw the potential in Borough Market as a place to be, but the money moved quicker than we could. All the inner London boroughs have gentrified (or is it ossified?) into homogenous, faux-hip zones for the rich, middle class pretenders, their streets all filled with the same aroma of garlic and coffee. There is little solace there. I moved out years ago, when it was obvious that London was just becoming the same all over, just at differing paces.
Well blame the landlords, they rent out the spaces to the highest bidder, it isnt a conspiricy. But then I am sure you want a decent pension too... I guess if London built tall and densely, replacing the bland post-war and even maybe some of the Victorian/Edwardian housing areas that cover most of the city then you could have your cake and eat it like they do in Asian cities where they actually build for a growing population rather than let "history" strangle the supply and price out all the retail variation.
@@phaasch Those 80s hipsters are the ones sat in low rise sprawl basically preventing any densification of "their" wider area that they think they somehow own. The irony is that conservation isnt a zero sum game, it has a huge negative knock on effect on supply and demand, the cynic in me would suggest that conservation and resident groups form merely to protect their own house price increases. Maybe if they had built the huge station with shopping "mall" on top of an enlarged station in the 90s there would have been space for Sports Direct and the Dream Catcher Emporium to co-exist? I mean you can basically repeat that question all over London in all sorts of niche and underground areas like the nightclub scene that has been decimated. Funny how Asian cities never have that problem.
@@suburbia2050: 'Funny how Asian cities never have that problem.' Then there is Hong Kong with its densely packed high rise skyline where families live in tiny, sweaty flats. Building up is not the answer as has been discovered with the poor examples of local authority housing over the past decades. They were mistakes then and the broken model continues to be adopted.
I haven't heard people say I shouldn't say "mall", but I have heard people say I pronounce it wrong. I say it the same as Jago, and indeed, Americans. Rhymes with ball. But people say it should rhyme with pal.
@@PiousMoltar "Maul" for a shopping arcade seems OK as it is an American concept anyway. But "mal" for a street, as in Pall Mall, of course - not to mention THE Mall, at one end of which that old lady has her London gaff.
I'm surprised that HSBC right on the corner is still there but wouldn't be surprised if they - hsbc - gave up the site to tfl very easily indeed given the speed bank branches have disappeared most other places. A wrap around tube entrance blending in with the existing design would help access for more modest money than those 2000 ideas.
This has baffled me for years! HSBC (and every high street bank really) have shut down hundreds of branches all over the country yet they still have this one which if sold to TfL would create vital extra room for the tube station! Can anyone in-the-know explain why?
I imagine it's because the markets are, or were until recently, largely cash based, so there was enough demand for the kind of banking services that can't be done online.
My thoughts exactly! Keep the frontages of the current station and bank but knock the two together inside to create one building. Unless there's some kind of structural issue we don't know about it seems the obvious solution.
These proposals are what happens when a child reads too many comic books and then grows up to be an architect. That first one has a bit of a bow-of-a-canal-boat look to it, which is at least thematically appropriate. The second one looks like a low rise Stark Tower in an alternate MCU where Iron Man had to follow development guidelines. The pod one reminds me of a particularly agressive fascinator.
Camden Town is really a difficult problem for the whole line. TfL would love to expand overall throughput by just splitting Northern into two lines (so no normal switching at all) but then Camden Town would instantly become a major interchange point. But it's already one of the most overcrowded places on the whole network, so that would be a mess. Doing the proposed Battersea->Clapham Junction extension would be extremely useful for the south of the network, but doing so without sorting the switching issue in Camden first would be a headache all its own. So the whole line is hamstrung by the limitations in Camden. That said, the circa-2000 redevelopment plans were really dreadful. The 2018 plan at least was reasonable, but who knows if it will ever go ahead.
If the Northern line does get extended to Clapham Junction, would there be an infill station? Looking at the map, there's a rather large gap between the two stations and it seems appropriate to put one on this route? Let's say at the edge of Battersea Park at Albert Bridge Road?
@@Pano1 Clapham Junction would just congest the entire line even more than it already is. That's why it hasn't happened. They need to sort bottlenecks around the rest of the network before that would even be practical. Just think how much traffic is already passing through the place!
@@francisrogers9824 Too close together, the distance between Battersea Power Station and Clapham Junction isn’t that far at all. Clapham Junxtion is in Battersea after all.
@@Kolavskaya Splitting would not make interchanging any better - almost certainly it would be worse - and is would not be practical without a major rebuild at platform level with a lot more inter-platform connections and probably something like the central tunnel at Bank to allow crowds to exit the platforms without having to walk down the platform. What splitting would do is to increase the numbers of trains per hour you can run and generally decrease congestion.
In the early 1980s, I stayed with a friend whose flat was above a shop on Camden High Street specializing in "literature" and "personal items" of questionable taste. The Camden Town tube station was nearby, but always so gridlocked with human traffic that I almost always preferred trudging down to Warren Street or Euston Square. Your video informs me that the situation at Camden Town station has gone from bad to worse in the interceding 40 or so years. Perhaps what is worse is that the area has gone from questionable to almost respectable. Like you, I recall waking many times in Camden vowing to never drink again. University money well spent, that was. May you get well soon.
Maybe they should just "annexe" the HSBC, get some Oxblood tiles and extend the present station so it looks like its always been there. Might give sufficient space for the passenger throughput without being OTT. I wonder how an express line might have worked? Under the present line but with minimal interchanges? Just one or more of the major terminii or would it have gone somewhere else? Hmmmm.
Unfortunately adding a bit of space in the front wouldn't provide any place for a new escalator or anything, so won't be of much help. To expand actual capacity you need to mostly go in the other direction
"Tomb Raider Experience....." "Something you can do in your local cemetery with a pick & shovel......." Couldn't help but having a good chuckle at that! 😁😄😆
Now that the Bank works are complete and the NLE is done, I can easily see this being TFL’s next big project - including splitting the Northern line. Get it done, TfL!
Splitting the Northern would add to congestion as 50% of those that wait for a train to their final destination at the stations before Camden town would now have to travel to Camden and change there.
Admitting up front that I recognise how much of an insanely MASSIVE (and expensive) disruption it would be, I still feel that the only realistic solution for Camden Town is to completely rip out everything, relay the tracks as two separate lines/branches and rebuild the station so it can handle being both an interchange and a destination. Just make sure you hire an architect that designs a building in keeping with the feel of the local area.
@ Reuben McKay I think that would not be necessary. They already have two pairs of platforms (one pair for each northern branch, and hence one pair for each line if they split them), and the tracks are already laid out in such a way as to allow parallel working without crossovers. The problem is the limited and awkward passenger access between the various platforms and between the platforms and the surface, so what is needed is better and more capacious interchange facilities and an extra set of escalators leading to an additional entrance/exit. BTW one current problem, i.e. that southbound passengers can't tell in advance which platorm their first train will go from, would be solved by the split in and of itself.
One should go steady on the nostalgia for Camden Town past - its easy to forget the old problems. Early/mid 1960s, Parkway (from the tube station towards Regents Park and the Zoo) was largely Cypriot shops and cafes, Greek Cypriot one side, Turkish Cypriot on the other, with the occasional petrol bomb lobbed across. Just off Parkway stood the large Rowton House, a hostel for the many Irish labourers in the area. So there was little scope for the district to go downmarket. I lived at nearby Archway, so was aware of the area's flaws. Having said that, its one of many transformed areas of London, with very dodgy histories - anyone remember Notting Hill from the same period?
Keeping in line with the book references, then as an analogy to the Tube station of Camden Town, it is not the cover of the book that needs updating, but its content. Considering the volume of passengers flowing through on a daily basis then the three causes of concern are: the lack of extra escalators; the bottleneck that forms at the exit where there are insufficient turnstiles (not sure what their proper name is); and that chaotic mess at the bottom of the escalator pointing to the various platforms in a disorienting way. It seems a real mystery to me that TfL have actually managed to conveniently overlooked what is very worryingly a recipe for disaster. Rather than a total facelift, which would not be practical and fair to the average person in this age of inflation, it would be truly rewarding to see the ethos of a bygone era where engineers were valued for their ingenuity. I wouldn’t overhaul the structure of the building through demolition, as that would also mean closing down the station, impacting the local economy. My proposal is to tender a design for a further escalator or two (or something alternative perhaps innovative), and when the lease runs out on the HSBC site then to restructure that part with a columned facade that creates a joined entrance/exit. Just an idea. But something needs to be done.
My family and I made the mistake of having our vacation to London in March of 2020. It wasn’t so bad Hampton Court and the Tower of London were empty and we literally had them to ourselves. My youngest daughter is a huge Dr marten boots fan and wanted a pair very badly from Camden. The store was already closed due to the luming pandemic but the street was empty. We decided to buy what we could from whoever was open. 4 shops got all of our business. Even with all that the tube station at Camden was still really busy.
I'm imagining it now, Leslie Green buildings slowly being moved next to each other as old stations get replaced or upgraded, in some bizzare game of 2048.
The old Camden market is no more and a lot of the traders moved out in response to the higher rents that the brand stores were able to pay. The current owner of Camden market has put it up for sale and hopes to recapture the spirit of bygone days with his brand new development, Hawley Wharf, that has all the charm of airport shopping. As for the station, who knows? Whatever happens, the rebuilt station will have none of the flights of fancy proposed in Taylor's book.
I have sympathy for the Camden Town designers. The more area they can get possession of on the surface the easier and faster it is to dig the station box. Excavating by keyhole like at Bond Street is going to get you into all sorts of trouble. What gets put over the station afterwards is probably just a secondary consideration and more for the accountants. The Sydney Metro is lucky that Sydney has an almost unlimited amount of totally nondescript buildings , that mainly date from the 70s , that can be resumed and demolished with not one person caring at all, so our station boxes are massive, even in the centre of cities.
There are two big issues at Camden Town. Only the first (perhaps) is that covered here - the need to get more people in and out of the station. I guess there is a need for a larger gate line than the space currently allows for, and there definitely is a need for another set of escalators, but perhaps the real need is to have some space outside for people to arrive or depart from. That is the justification, I think, for switching the entrance to the north - the junction of Chalk Farm Road and Kentish Town Road forms a fairly sharp point - there is not much room. To be honest turning one of them into pedestrian-only would probably solve the problem. Perhaps the real problem though is what Jago glossed over - the platform level. It is no big secret that TfL would like to split the Northern Line into two - the Bank branch going to Highgate etc and the Charing Cross branch going to Hampstead (or is it the other way around? I forget exactly). Getting rid of the Junctions at Camden Town would allow much better throughput. However, a rough estimate is that 50% of passengers would change trains. Camden can't cope. They need a lot more interchange tunnel connections. The connection between the top and the bottom? Money. TfL want a big commercial development to pay for the whole thing. As you imply, this is hardly Camden. They have been fluffing around for a few decades on this. If they really want to split the line into two, they probably need to pay for it - think Bank!
I always try to avoid Camden Town because it's full of tourists at daytime and druggies when the night falls. I keep hearing stories about what a cool place it used to be but I can't see it there now.
Things were actually probably better when you were a lad Jago, and Sports Direct can sod off...! I mean Camden Town certainly does look more pretentious nowadays than how I remember it 20 years ago. It would be cool for its station to have a second entrance though. Better late than never.
Very interesting - I like Camden - specially the Market - even thou I have not been there in many many years!!! I once drove to Camden to have a night out - forgot where I packed my car & proceeded to spend about 9 hrs looking for it but that is another story!!! 😮🚂🚂🚂
That book must be a fun read. Those hypothetical designs are wild, and very much reflective of the strange, sci-fi design language of the early 2000s. There's a certain charm to them in that sense, but as an outside observer who has never been to London, I don't think they'd fit in with the look of the area. Still, I love videos about this sort of thing. Looking at concept art of projects and wondering what could have been is a lot of fun to me.
There's a simple, easy, and cheap solution. Use naming psychology! Rename Chalk Farm as Camden Roundhouse - it's actually closer to parts of the market. Rename Mornington Crescent as Camden South, Camden High Street, Camden Palace (a nearby venue), or even Camden Mornington. Re-open Kentish Town South as Camden North (yes, I know it will slow up Tube lines, maybe a part-time station?). Re-open Primrose Hill (why, why, why was it closed?) as Camden Market, Camden Lock, or Camden Stables, and change Camden Road to Camden East, and re-open Camden Road (Midland) as Camden Road (there is literally no station nearby, weird). Basically, use extant infrastructure to reduce pressure.
I think they need to build new Northern Line tunnels, get rid of the junction, have one cross platform interchange for Northbound trains and a second cross platform interchange for Southbound trains. If they cut the escalators back, they could create a new concourse one level down and then dig up the entire road junction, in a similar style to Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. They could then compulsory purchase all the buildings on the corners of that junction, so that they could have multiple ways up from the underground concourse.
But in a sense that cross-platform interchange already exists. 1 and 3 northbound are on the upper level and 2 and 4 southbound are on the lower level. I suspect though that the current platforms and passageways are not wide enough for demand. From what I remember, people also sometimes wait to see which platform is the next southbound train for their desired route, which can cause localised congestion.
The elephants head is my favourite pub in C.T. Its grubby, chocker block, touristy, bohemian and I love sitting in the window and watching the sexy Punkets walking by.
40-50 years ago I lived in Belsize Park in a bedsit. Camden and Chalk Farm were part of my stamping ground. Camden had its market even then and it was worth visiting. Interesting 'late hippie' stuff. The Roundhouse was famed for its Sunday afternoon concerts. Camden Town was a dump but it was a gorgeous dump. Last time I visited was a couple of years ago and found that it's now an even more gorgeous dump particularly if you walk around looking above the shops. These proposals seem to be designed to wreck the dump: it'll be a real shame if they're implemented without serious public consultation.
Used Camden Town station on my last trip to London. (God, that makes me feel so old typing that...) Never made it up to Camden Lock (which I wanted to see), or the market, but my mate and I did stop at Poppy's for some lovely fish and chips. (Don't at me, I also love me some Master's Superfish on Waterloo Road.)
Early underground car, at the London Transport Museum. I have no idea what they were thinking - normal railway cars had normal windows then. Maybe they thought that passengers would get freaked out about being in a lot of tunnels, but then there were long railway tunnels already.
@@emjayay - They were colloquially known as ‘Padded cells’. The designers thought that as they ran completely in tunnels, there was no need for windows! Each car had a gateman who would shout out the names of the stations as they arrived.
OK you got me good with that "Tomb Raider" line... RIP me, died laffin. Gawds I miss my travelin days... I absolutely _adore_ London, I wish I could live there.
As an ex- resident of Camden Town (Chalk Farm Road from 1982 to 1989) it's rather sad to see what has become of the whole area. Used to be a great place, with lots of fishmongers, bakers, the Inverness Street food market as well as the Lock and the Stables. The tube was always chaos on weekends so I'd always head for Chalk Farm or Kentish Town to avoid getting trampled. Very interesting to see these designs, but not surprising to see that the station is still a mess.
camden town was always coolest ten years before whoever is currently talking about it says they liked it. honestly, the biggest problem - bigger even than the basic infrastructure of the tube - is the most boring one: there's too much money floating around in the private sector and not enough in the public sector. if they could preserve certain sections and enforce more local vendors & independent shops with centrally-subsidised rent controls & a vision for camden as a cultural destination, rather than sports direct and tomb raider, it'd have a chance to survive. alas, camden is now mostly only worth visiting as a food court and a couple of vintage shops tucked away in the old stables. there's too much money for it to be downmarket cool, but not enough for it to be high fashion arty. wood green: its your time to shine.
London is a world city and you're going up against the wealth of the world. A billion dollars is a pittance to a fund managing a pension fund and (sad as it is) that area is attractive to wide-scale generic development simply because it's a 10 minute cab drive into central London. Although I do think it would be good if the council had the ability to levy a progressive tax on square footage and therefore prohibitively penalise any business larger than a small shop.
Pall-Mall was a game that was sort of a cross between golf and croquet. You needed a very long straight area to play it. One such court was the eponymously named London thoroughfare. When the game went out of fashion, a lot of the old courts became poplar market places. You have a nice long narrow street with shops either side. All very convenient. But that's why we now call collections of shops, malls. So really it's a very English term.
Not living in London, I lose track of where is cool and where isn't. Obviously, I only want to hang out in cool places when I come up to town. Perhaps you could do a series on authentically cool places to go.
Unfortunately, cool is transient, thanks to capitalism. As soon as somewhere becomes cool, the money moves in, and it becomes commercial, and therefore uncool.
There are a load of rough+ready places south of the river. I'd recommend the Bermondsey Beer Mile (bar crawl from South Bermondsey to London Bridge) but there are a bunch of other weird side streets around there that are the same as they were 20 years ago. Hoxton (East London) is also still ok(ish). Typically I'd say if you want a night out akin to London circa 2000 then visit somewhere else like Manchester.
Here's what you do: go to a neighbourhood boozer on a friday night, the kind that everyone from the area goes to but that would not pass for cool in anyone's book. Have drinks with the patrons, be interested and nice, maybe buy a round. There will be a time when some of the more interesting people will leave for another bar/club whathaveyou and you'll ask if you can join them. That's the how you get to the cool place. London or Antarctica.
Camden Town and the Battersea Power Station redevelopment were by far my favourite areas in London Jago, have you ever considered doing a video on the proposed split of the Northern Line, which would include a mandatory rebuild of the Camden Town station? Or maybe how the split could be done while leaving the station as is? (maybe with interchanges only in Euston and Kennington?)
@@seansoraghan3245 I believe Mornington Crescent is only on one branch? So they could do an OSI between MC and CT, with MC on one branch and CT only on the other branch
@@miguelbarreira5005 Mornington station sits between both branches but is only connected to one My idea is to connect to both branches the distance is fairly short
they were all a bit like 'a spaceship landed in Camden Town'! The most i know about Camden was how many bands cut their teeth in the area when there were many (in)famous pub venues, then later on into Britpop times where it became a fashionable place to get wasted (and be seen to be so by the hip press)
Gentry-fying Camden to take advantage of its popularity would akin to someone buying a house in a leafy suburb and then cutting down the trees because of the mess in autumn. Campaign time to preserve character, m'thinks. And no, concrete and glass doth not form character even after a century.
Surely the key is to redevelop the station below ground, which is what has happened and is happening at Bank, although this might have to happen at a slightly different location as shutting the northern line for months at this location is not an option. Building a new second entrance would therefore make sense, as this could be the replacement temporary entrance whilst the original station is reworked, to then provide a final solution
Love those original tube stations on the Northern line. I remember getting off the National Express coach from Chesterfield at Golder's Green and getting on the tube. I thought Camden Town was a Listed Building in a Conservation area...
It must have been a New Labour/Cool Britannia thing to design all these ultra modern metal and glass buildings, without paying any attention to the surrounding environment. Yes Camden Town needs urgent rebuilding, and yes the Electric Ballroom is a toilet, but the proposals were just silly. Hounslow East was a clever design, but really does stick out. I do hope the Buck Street entrance idea for Camden Town eventually goes ahead, because some kind of addition is desperately needed. For an example of how out-of-place the modern Camden Town would have looked, witness the Arts Depot in North Finchley. A true carbuncle that adds nothing to the area, but towers high and looks so out of place.
Can you imagine the S-ilt we'd be in, in the summer? Glass and steel with barely any mass to absorb heat, so everything goes directly into the ticket hall and creates a huge pocket of hot air. It'd have to be shut during the day, at the rate at which the heatwaves are going.
Camden Town, oh those glorious (are you sure?) formative teenage personal development time spent learning that because a place has a reputation for cool, doesn't mean it is anything beyond an expensive tourist trap. Although I did purchase a brilliant biker leather jacket for £40 which was one of the gems I got from the stolen gear/second hand market.
the study reminds me of Mr Fogg's Residence. as for the market it was designated to use repurposed containers so as to be quickly dismantled, and the school still on Buck street still remains closed after the the new one was built on Hawley Street the new canalised shops on the old markets conceal considerable construction underground opposite the old MTV studios/ Viacom offices similar to the old storage of the accurately named ice wharf Wetherspoons, one great loss is the redevelopment of the Old Morrisons supermarket & the Camden catacombs beneath it. Also at the rear of Darwin Court apartments on Gloucester Road opposite the Foxton's estate agent you would find the old steam engine rail entrance to the Hampstead line which runs under the Rotunda complex (the cylinderical Architecture is a giveaway as being the Vertical shaft) next to Gloucester Crescent
One of the things I miss most about London is drunkenly stumbling from Electric Ballroom down to Mornington Crescent at 3am on a sunday morning. fingers crossed they don't have the funds to do much for a while yet.
"Electricity to my ball room" - now *that* would solve your blocked tubes in a very short time! Hope you'll be back to full steam in the shortest time dear Jago 😊
One day about twenty(!) years ago now I was on a trip to London and visited Camden. On returning to Camden Town station there was a guy with a rather magnificent handlebar moustache manning the gate, only letting in so many people at a time to avoid a risk of crushing.
I was a child of the Northern Line (High Barnet branch), arriving in Finchley, aged nine, when we'd migrated from Dublin. You could still see the odd bowler hatted gentleman then and the rush hour ended promptly at 9.30 and trains would run almost empty up till 4pm. They were the cosy 1930s carriages of old and the rails didn't scream at one like they do now. Anyway, Camden Town was taking off us a hip place, but concentrated within the immediate lock area. By 1984/85 I worked for a year on Oval Road and would pass Alan bennett with his string shopping basket, no doubt out doing Thora Hirds shopping for her. The company I worked for was Club 18-30 Holidays and I even became a Clubrep. Top company and very professional in spite of the company's notoriety. I remember many a drunken night in the Elephant's Head. This was all when Camden was still on a scale. I can't remember when I might last have been there and I'm more than happy to leave it to my past.
Get well soon, Jago! Really interesting as always, and agreed on your views around the new station proposals at Camden. Also, that Tomb Raider gag really tickled me…
Looking at the discussions of the impact on Camden Town, as we all know by the time funds are raised, plans approved and construction started all the "cool kids" will be going to Osterley or Tooting Bec. Camden Town is where the cabbies take the tourists from Iowa.
TfL has already bought a lot of plots between Stucley Place, Buck Street and Kentish Town Road in order to build the new primary ticket hall and entrance / exit. The current station building would serve as a secondary entrance / exit. There's just not enough money to redevelop the station's internal layout. And don't forget, redevelopment of the station's platforms and concourses is also a necessity in order to seperate both the eastern section of the Northern line from the western section.
I remember the squabble over this, though I never managed to make it to the Ballroom as Full Tilt ended and when visiting London I'd usually end up in the Devonshire Arms followed by Hotel Slimelight (Angel Station, left left and left). Also remember getting pieced on a whim in Cold Steel Last time I went to Camden it was very different, much more big brands and it doesn't surprise me that things like Sports Direct and Tomb Raider have moved in. The Goths seem to have decamped to Holloway and Archway, not sure where the punks have gone. Underworld is still there though! I also bet that Cyberdog still needs a second mortgage! Now it's brands and hipsters maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to rebuild the station?
Nothbound platforms at Camden Town are split according to which line the trains are destined to go on, which is useful, wheras the southbound platforms are split, but determined by where the trains have come FROM, which is not so useful, but difficult to avoid during construction, hence the dot-matrix indicators on the concourse at the foot of the escalators.
The first proposal, while still being upmarket, appears like it would have fit into the surroundings quite well, what with only being a story or two taller than the surroundings.
Great video Jago. I spent a lot of the 70s and 80s in Camden. I worked on a comic book stall in the then tiny Camden Market. I used to buy 50s rock n roll records from Ted Carroll's Rock On records which was right by the station entrance on the Kentish Town Road side. Great memories.
With you Jago on everything you said about Camden Town area/market. I guess we are a similar age. Man it has changed. Sigh. I guess one thing you can say is that at least it didn't totally close (like Kensington) and the Electric Ballroom was saved.
I see the grafitti HELCH at 10.44, there's a huge on of those on the railway bridge across the M25 between jcts 16 and 17, it replaced give peas a chance and the Queen Mother is hip. They go back awhile as you can imagine. I always wonder how the hell they get up there and do it without being seen, especially with all the CCTV these days.
If Camden gets redeveloped, they should keep the original frontage, and somehow include a decent sized venue above the station, it'd be a no-brainer if you ask me!
Use to love going to Camden Market in the 80s and 90s, first in my young Mod days, then my love for the new indie sounds took me to Camden and Kensington Market.... Ahhh we miss you Kensington Market 😪 but you are right, it's kind of lost its gritty charm, its becoming clinically clean.... Bahhhhh🤮
The environment of Camden Town, with all its clubs and other entertainment reminds of notorious "Block E" in Minneapolis, where I grew up. The whole block was flattened in 1988, and nothing would replace it besides a parking lot until 2001. It was a shopping and hotel complex of no special merit, that became a desolate failure in 10 years. At least the gentrification of Camden Town isn't leading to too much demolition, just more expensive venues going into the existing buildings.
The 'favourite' plan looks very 1930s to me because of all the singly-curved glass, slender-pillared balcony, and minimalist suggestion of an awning. Unlike many 1930s buildings, I like it. Chalk Farms is an interesting sight. I associate Leslie Green's stations with very rectangular shapes, if not outright squares. This is different. ... Oh, um, Leicester Square is also a Leslie Green design on a corner, but works better, to my mind. It doesn't try to have a rounded corner. Monopoly introduced me to the word "mall" when my mother informed me that Pell Mell should be pronounced "Pall Mall". Make of that what you will. :) Oh... why didn't I realize none of these stations would suit Camden Town? Probably because the 'favourite' beguiled me. :)
Jago’s home looks exactly like I imagined it would.
Same scale too. I figured he was about 5 inches tall.
Quite a big office.
I was expecting Roly Mo from the Fimbles here as well. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we will begin!!!!
It does
I thought he lived in a small (ish) flat on the river
The whole of Camden Market is now up for sale. I'm sure Jago Hazzard with his newly minted UA-cam billions will be in for it to ensure it retains the indie vibe of old.
I hope they dont redevelop
@@annother3350 They will, the git that owns it at the moment priced loads of Stallholders out about 5 Years ago (A close friend had a stall in West Yard near the Dock Area for the Canal Taxis and he was given a Week to get out by the Owners after they sold the place he was in out from under him)
@@stephenhester9804 shocking - theyre going to kill it like they did greenwich
@@eastlancsesteem hope they do what? build some luxury flats there?!
@@annother3350 No. I hope they don't.
even as a relatively young person who began spending time in camden only just under a decade ago, i find the gentrification that has gone on in the area disgusting, and often find myself feeling deep hurt at the recent rampant greed and consumerism that has infected the town, and ironically threatens to.. well, consume the spirit that always made camden feel like home to me. even in 2014-2015, there was a community, a feeling of joy, and a confidence like nothing else i have known from the knowledge that as a massive misfit kid, i could go there, and no one cared. no one had any preconceived ideas of why i chose to dress or express myself in the way i did, and i couldn’t wait to experience it as an adult. now, i am approaching adulthood, and honestly every time i end up in camden, i find myself missing that feeling. it feels like a shell and while the gems of hope and reality are still present, it feels so much less safe and real than it did. i really hope that camden still has soul in it yet and that the corporations that have bought much of it out will not destroy it and move on as they have done to so many of london’s cultural hubs, but even more so i hope that as a city we still are able to slowly establish new and open minded grassroots hubs for counterculture and open expression, without the generic and sanitised, world destroying produce currently filling our streets!
apologies for the rant, but i feel it’s an important sentiment!
Camden has been colonised by the bean counters who don't understand that you cannot buy the vibe of something that grew organically over many decades. They have plonked down their shiny palaces of overpriced tat on a shambolic but charming thoroughfare.
Having just commented above, I saw this. Sadly, in today's commercial world, there is a tide which sweeps over the old world, and the real people in it. In the 80s, a group of us saw the potential in Borough Market as a place to be, but the money moved quicker than we could. All the inner London boroughs have gentrified (or is it ossified?) into homogenous, faux-hip zones for the rich, middle class pretenders, their streets all filled with the same aroma of garlic and coffee. There is little solace there. I moved out years ago, when it was obvious that London was just becoming the same all over, just at differing paces.
Well blame the landlords, they rent out the spaces to the highest bidder, it isnt a conspiricy. But then I am sure you want a decent pension too... I guess if London built tall and densely, replacing the bland post-war and even maybe some of the Victorian/Edwardian housing areas that cover most of the city then you could have your cake and eat it like they do in Asian cities where they actually build for a growing population rather than let "history" strangle the supply and price out all the retail variation.
@@phaasch Those 80s hipsters are the ones sat in low rise sprawl basically preventing any densification of "their" wider area that they think they somehow own. The irony is that conservation isnt a zero sum game, it has a huge negative knock on effect on supply and demand, the cynic in me would suggest that conservation and resident groups form merely to protect their own house price increases. Maybe if they had built the huge station with shopping "mall" on top of an enlarged station in the 90s there would have been space for Sports Direct and the Dream Catcher Emporium to co-exist? I mean you can basically repeat that question all over London in all sorts of niche and underground areas like the nightclub scene that has been decimated. Funny how Asian cities never have that problem.
@@suburbia2050: 'Funny how Asian cities never have that problem.' Then there is Hong Kong with its densely packed high rise skyline where families live in tiny, sweaty flats. Building up is not the answer as has been discovered with the poor examples of local authority housing over the past decades. They were mistakes then and the broken model continues to be adopted.
"Mall" is American, but then again, so was Charles Yerkes.
The gauntlet has been hurled onto the firmament.
Drink!
I haven't heard people say I shouldn't say "mall", but I have heard people say I pronounce it wrong. I say it the same as Jago, and indeed, Americans. Rhymes with ball. But people say it should rhyme with pal.
@@PiousMoltar "Maul" for a shopping arcade seems OK as it is an American concept anyway. But "mal" for a street, as in Pall Mall, of course - not to mention THE Mall, at one end of which that old lady has her London gaff.
@@PiousMoltar My ex-Londoner Dad preferred 'pal'. Canadians like 'ball'.
I'm definitely stuck in Art Deco styling....not enough of it in the world, needs to be revived!
Here's to Team Jago! ✊🏻🤜🏻🤛🏻🍻
I'm surprised that HSBC right on the corner is still there but wouldn't be surprised if they - hsbc - gave up the site to tfl very easily indeed given the speed bank branches have disappeared most other places. A wrap around tube entrance blending in with the existing design would help access for more modest money than those 2000 ideas.
This has baffled me for years! HSBC (and every high street bank really) have shut down hundreds of branches all over the country yet they still have this one which if sold to TfL would create vital extra room for the tube station! Can anyone in-the-know explain why?
I imagine it's because the markets are, or were until recently, largely cash based, so there was enough demand for the kind of banking services that can't be done online.
@@luxford60 so couldn't they just move the bank to another retail unit nearby that isn't attached to the overcrowded station?
This branch is also useless. Try visiting many times, most of the services are not available.
My thoughts exactly! Keep the frontages of the current station and bank but knock the two together inside to create one building. Unless there's some kind of structural issue we don't know about it seems the obvious solution.
These proposals are what happens when a child reads too many comic books and then grows up to be an architect.
That first one has a bit of a bow-of-a-canal-boat look to it, which is at least thematically appropriate. The second one looks like a low rise Stark Tower in an alternate MCU where Iron Man had to follow development guidelines. The pod one reminds me of a particularly agressive fascinator.
Camden Town is really a difficult problem for the whole line. TfL would love to expand overall throughput by just splitting Northern into two lines (so no normal switching at all) but then Camden Town would instantly become a major interchange point. But it's already one of the most overcrowded places on the whole network, so that would be a mess.
Doing the proposed Battersea->Clapham Junction extension would be extremely useful for the south of the network, but doing so without sorting the switching issue in Camden first would be a headache all its own.
So the whole line is hamstrung by the limitations in Camden. That said, the circa-2000 redevelopment plans were really dreadful. The 2018 plan at least was reasonable, but who knows if it will ever go ahead.
Extending it to Clapham Junction will make Camden Town so, so, so busy.
If the Northern line does get extended to Clapham Junction, would there be an infill station?
Looking at the map, there's a rather large gap between the two stations and it seems appropriate to put one on this route? Let's say at the edge of Battersea Park at Albert Bridge Road?
@@Pano1 Clapham Junction would just congest the entire line even more than it already is. That's why it hasn't happened. They need to sort bottlenecks around the rest of the network before that would even be practical. Just think how much traffic is already passing through the place!
@@francisrogers9824 Too close together, the distance between Battersea Power Station and Clapham Junction isn’t that far at all. Clapham Junxtion is in Battersea after all.
@@Kolavskaya Splitting would not make interchanging any better - almost certainly it would be worse - and is would not be practical without a major rebuild at platform level with a lot more inter-platform connections and probably something like the central tunnel at Bank to allow crowds to exit the platforms without having to walk down the platform. What splitting would do is to increase the numbers of trains per hour you can run and generally decrease congestion.
Even while sick at home, Jago still finds a way to come through with the content
We don’t deserve you, Jago! 😭 Get well soon!
In the early 1980s, I stayed with a friend whose flat was above a shop on Camden High Street specializing in "literature" and "personal items" of questionable taste. The Camden Town tube station was nearby, but always so gridlocked with human traffic that I almost always preferred trudging down to Warren Street or Euston Square. Your video informs me that the situation at Camden Town station has gone from bad to worse in the interceding 40 or so years. Perhaps what is worse is that the area has gone from questionable to almost respectable. Like you, I recall waking many times in Camden vowing to never drink again. University money well spent, that was. May you get well soon.
Maybe they should just "annexe" the HSBC, get some Oxblood tiles and extend the present station so it looks like its always been there. Might give sufficient space for the passenger throughput without being OTT.
I wonder how an express line might have worked? Under the present line but with minimal interchanges? Just one or more of the major terminii or would it have gone somewhere else? Hmmmm.
Unfortunately adding a bit of space in the front wouldn't provide any place for a new escalator or anything, so won't be of much help. To expand actual capacity you need to mostly go in the other direction
"Tomb Raider Experience....."
"Something you can do in your local cemetery with a pick & shovel......."
Couldn't help but having a good chuckle at that! 😁😄😆
Now that the Bank works are complete and the NLE is done, I can easily see this being TFL’s next big project - including splitting the Northern line. Get it done, TfL!
Splitting the Northern would add to congestion as 50% of those that wait for a train to their final destination at the stations before Camden town would now have to travel to Camden and change there.
Admitting up front that I recognise how much of an insanely MASSIVE (and expensive) disruption it would be, I still feel that the only realistic solution for Camden Town is to completely rip out everything, relay the tracks as two separate lines/branches and rebuild the station so it can handle being both an interchange and a destination. Just make sure you hire an architect that designs a building in keeping with the feel of the local area.
They should keep the current facade, and build around it.
@ Reuben McKay I think that would not be necessary. They already have two pairs of platforms (one pair for each northern branch, and hence one pair for each line if they split them), and the tracks are already laid out in such a way as to allow parallel working without crossovers. The problem is the limited and awkward passenger access between the various platforms and between the platforms and the surface, so what is needed is better and more capacious interchange facilities and an extra set of escalators leading to an additional entrance/exit. BTW one current problem, i.e. that southbound passengers can't tell in advance which platorm their first train will go from, would be solved by the split in and of itself.
i think you’re right. eventually it’ll evolve into CamdenWorld, and a big sterile station will fit in perfectly
"Hindsight is 2020" As it's 2022, and 2020 is now in the past, it is entirely behind us.
Thank goodness!
One should go steady on the nostalgia for Camden Town past - its easy to forget the old problems.
Early/mid 1960s, Parkway (from the tube station towards Regents Park and the Zoo) was largely Cypriot shops and cafes, Greek Cypriot one side, Turkish Cypriot on the other, with the occasional petrol bomb lobbed across. Just off Parkway stood the large Rowton House, a hostel for the many Irish labourers in the area. So there was little scope for the district to go downmarket.
I lived at nearby Archway, so was aware of the area's flaws. Having said that, its one of many transformed areas of London, with very dodgy histories - anyone remember Notting Hill from the same period?
Well,the Two Ronnies seemed to approve of the place:
ua-cam.com/video/m-lEA_Efl_4/v-deo.html
These stations are so tall they could probably just build an elevated railway.
Keeping in line with the book references, then as an analogy to the Tube station of Camden Town, it is not the cover of the book that needs updating, but its content. Considering the volume of passengers flowing through on a daily basis then the three causes of concern are: the lack of extra escalators; the bottleneck that forms at the exit where there are insufficient turnstiles (not sure what their proper name is); and that chaotic mess at the bottom of the escalator pointing to the various platforms in a disorienting way. It seems a real mystery to me that TfL have actually managed to conveniently overlooked what is very worryingly a recipe for disaster. Rather than a total facelift, which would not be practical and fair to the average person in this age of inflation, it would be truly rewarding to see the ethos of a bygone era where engineers were valued for their ingenuity. I wouldn’t overhaul the structure of the building through demolition, as that would also mean closing down the station, impacting the local economy. My proposal is to tender a design for a further escalator or two (or something alternative perhaps innovative), and when the lease runs out on the HSBC site then to restructure that part with a columned facade that creates a joined entrance/exit. Just an idea. But something needs to be done.
My family and I made the mistake of having our vacation to London in March of 2020. It wasn’t so bad Hampton Court and the Tower of London were empty and we literally had them to ourselves. My youngest daughter is a huge Dr marten boots fan and wanted a pair very badly from Camden. The store was already closed due to the luming pandemic but the street was empty. We decided to buy what we could from whoever was open. 4 shops got all of our business. Even with all that the tube station at Camden was still really busy.
Carefully dismantle the old Leslie Green station from Euston which is getting taken down for HS2 anyway and build it into an extension of Camden Town
Hah, if only. The wrecking ball has already claimed that fine old building, I'm afraid.
Sounds like a good plan. I am sad that Euston will disappear 😢
I'm imagining it now, Leslie Green buildings slowly being moved next to each other as old stations get replaced or upgraded, in some bizzare game of 2048.
It would not be hard at all to make molds and duplicate the ceramics and has probably been done in the past for repairs.
It'd be cheaper and easier to just build new in the same style, though I get the point of having original materials.
The old Camden market is no more and a lot of the traders moved out in response to the higher rents that the brand stores were able to pay. The current owner of Camden market has put it up for sale and hopes to recapture the spirit of bygone days with his brand new development, Hawley Wharf, that has all the charm of airport shopping. As for the station, who knows? Whatever happens, the rebuilt station will have none of the flights of fancy proposed in Taylor's book.
Caught its dying ebb ten years ago... 😢
All the charm of airport shopping - tick.
I have sympathy for the Camden Town designers. The more area they can get possession of on the surface the easier and faster it is to dig the station box. Excavating by keyhole like at Bond Street is going to get you into all sorts of trouble. What gets put over the station afterwards is probably just a secondary consideration and more for the accountants. The Sydney Metro is lucky that Sydney has an almost unlimited amount of totally nondescript buildings , that mainly date from the 70s , that can be resumed and demolished with not one person caring at all, so our station boxes are massive, even in the centre of cities.
“You’re the electric to my ballroom”. As ever a brilliantly informative video. Tremendous one liners.
There are two big issues at Camden Town. Only the first (perhaps) is that covered here - the need to get more people in and out of the station. I guess there is a need for a larger gate line than the space currently allows for, and there definitely is a need for another set of escalators, but perhaps the real need is to have some space outside for people to arrive or depart from. That is the justification, I think, for switching the entrance to the north - the junction of Chalk Farm Road and Kentish Town Road forms a fairly sharp point - there is not much room. To be honest turning one of them into pedestrian-only would probably solve the problem.
Perhaps the real problem though is what Jago glossed over - the platform level. It is no big secret that TfL would like to split the Northern Line into two - the Bank branch going to Highgate etc and the Charing Cross branch going to Hampstead (or is it the other way around? I forget exactly). Getting rid of the Junctions at Camden Town would allow much better throughput. However, a rough estimate is that 50% of passengers would change trains. Camden can't cope. They need a lot more interchange tunnel connections.
The connection between the top and the bottom? Money. TfL want a big commercial development to pay for the whole thing. As you imply, this is hardly Camden. They have been fluffing around for a few decades on this. If they really want to split the line into two, they probably need to pay for it - think Bank!
I always try to avoid Camden Town because it's full of tourists at daytime and druggies when the night falls. I keep hearing stories about what a cool place it used to be but I can't see it there now.
Me too.
Things were actually probably better when you were a lad Jago, and Sports Direct can sod off...! I mean Camden Town certainly does look more pretentious nowadays than how I remember it 20 years ago. It would be cool for its station to have a second entrance though. Better late than never.
Indeed, these days I prefer to go to the Northern Quarter in Manchester for the sort of things I used to get at Camden.
Very interesting - I like Camden - specially the Market - even thou I have not been there in many many years!!! I once drove to Camden to have a night out - forgot where I packed my car & proceeded to spend about 9 hrs looking for it but that is another story!!! 😮🚂🚂🚂
I love the quaint little library model at the beginning of the video. Also - get well soon.
6.12 reminds me of "place charles rogier" in Brussels, which in its center piece has a Starbucks off all things...
That book must be a fun read. Those hypothetical designs are wild, and very much reflective of the strange, sci-fi design language of the early 2000s. There's a certain charm to them in that sense, but as an outside observer who has never been to London, I don't think they'd fit in with the look of the area. Still, I love videos about this sort of thing. Looking at concept art of projects and wondering what could have been is a lot of fun to me.
‘Something you can do at your local cemetery with a pick and shovel’ Hilarious 😂😂
“Tomb Raider the live experience….something you can do for yourself at your local cemetery with a pick and a shovel” 😂😂😂😂👏👏👏
Damn! "Tomb Raiders replicated in your local cemetery with a pick and shovel". I sprayed ramen noodles on my monitor!
Looking forward really Camden Town is the next thing that needs to be looked at on the TfL network
Ah, Camden Town Station. Only place I've ever been mugged and I never regretted living there for an instant
There's a simple, easy, and cheap solution. Use naming psychology! Rename Chalk Farm as Camden Roundhouse - it's actually closer to parts of the market. Rename Mornington Crescent as Camden South, Camden High Street, Camden Palace (a nearby venue), or even Camden Mornington. Re-open Kentish Town South as Camden North (yes, I know it will slow up Tube lines, maybe a part-time station?). Re-open Primrose Hill (why, why, why was it closed?) as Camden Market, Camden Lock, or Camden Stables, and change Camden Road to Camden East, and re-open Camden Road (Midland) as Camden Road (there is literally no station nearby, weird). Basically, use extant infrastructure to reduce pressure.
Camden town underground station is iconic, should left alone
Facts
I think they need to build new Northern Line tunnels, get rid of the junction, have one cross platform interchange for Northbound trains and a second cross platform interchange for Southbound trains.
If they cut the escalators back, they could create a new concourse one level down and then dig up the entire road junction, in a similar style to Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.
They could then compulsory purchase all the buildings on the corners of that junction, so that they could have multiple ways up from the underground concourse.
But in a sense that cross-platform interchange already exists. 1 and 3 northbound are on the upper level and 2 and 4 southbound are on the lower level. I suspect though that the current platforms and passageways are not wide enough for demand. From what I remember, people also sometimes wait to see which platform is the next southbound train for their desired route, which can cause localised congestion.
The elephants head is my favourite pub in C.T. Its grubby, chocker block, touristy, bohemian and I love sitting in the window and watching the sexy Punkets walking by.
It took me a while to remember where I saw those proposed designs before... In the 1950s Eagle Annuals, in the Dan Dare stories. Hmmm...
40-50 years ago I lived in Belsize Park in a bedsit. Camden and Chalk Farm were part of my stamping ground. Camden had its market even then and it was worth visiting. Interesting 'late hippie' stuff. The Roundhouse was famed for its Sunday afternoon concerts. Camden Town was a dump but it was a gorgeous dump. Last time I visited was a couple of years ago and found that it's now an even more gorgeous dump particularly if you walk around looking above the shops. These proposals seem to be designed to wreck the dump: it'll be a real shame if they're implemented without serious public consultation.
I did smile at your "rant" at towards the end. The Tomb Raider comment should come with a disclaimer. Hilarious!
"Loathsome sickness"
A wonderfully Shakespearean phrase.
Used Camden Town station on my last trip to London. (God, that makes me feel so old typing that...) Never made it up to Camden Lock (which I wanted to see), or the market, but my mate and I did stop at Poppy's for some lovely fish and chips. (Don't at me, I also love me some Master's Superfish on Waterloo Road.)
As you said, Jago...' Ahh, memories !! '
2:51 - those windows!! it looks like something you'd transport cattle in!
Early underground car, at the London Transport Museum. I have no idea what they were thinking - normal railway cars had normal windows then. Maybe they thought that passengers would get freaked out about being in a lot of tunnels, but then there were long railway tunnels already.
@@emjayay - They were colloquially known as ‘Padded cells’. The designers thought that as they ran completely in tunnels, there was no need for windows! Each car had a gateman who would shout out the names of the stations as they arrived.
OK you got me good with that "Tomb Raider" line... RIP me, died laffin.
Gawds I miss my travelin days... I absolutely _adore_ London, I wish I could live there.
As an ex- resident of Camden Town (Chalk Farm Road from 1982 to 1989) it's rather sad to see what has become of the whole area. Used to be a great place, with lots of fishmongers, bakers, the Inverness Street food market as well as the Lock and the Stables. The tube was always chaos on weekends so I'd always head for Chalk Farm or Kentish Town to avoid getting trampled. Very interesting to see these designs, but not surprising to see that the station is still a mess.
camden town was always coolest ten years before whoever is currently talking about it says they liked it. honestly, the biggest problem - bigger even than the basic infrastructure of the tube - is the most boring one: there's too much money floating around in the private sector and not enough in the public sector. if they could preserve certain sections and enforce more local vendors & independent shops with centrally-subsidised rent controls & a vision for camden as a cultural destination, rather than sports direct and tomb raider, it'd have a chance to survive.
alas, camden is now mostly only worth visiting as a food court and a couple of vintage shops tucked away in the old stables. there's too much money for it to be downmarket cool, but not enough for it to be high fashion arty.
wood green: its your time to shine.
Careful; given the general trends of gentrification, you're inviting Wood Green to end up like Camden, or Brooklyn in NYC.
London is a world city and you're going up against the wealth of the world. A billion dollars is a pittance to a fund managing a pension fund and (sad as it is) that area is attractive to wide-scale generic development simply because it's a 10 minute cab drive into central London. Although I do think it would be good if the council had the ability to levy a progressive tax on square footage and therefore prohibitively penalise any business larger than a small shop.
6:22 Not keen myself on the "we were crashed into by a flying saucer" design.
Pall-Mall was a game that was sort of a cross between golf and croquet. You needed a very long straight area to play it. One such court was the eponymously named London thoroughfare. When the game went out of fashion, a lot of the old courts became poplar market places. You have a nice long narrow street with shops either side. All very convenient. But that's why we now call collections of shops, malls. So really it's a very English term.
Hounslow East was my local tube station until 1996. They've really improved it since!
Not living in London, I lose track of where is cool and where isn't. Obviously, I only want to hang out in cool places when I come up to town. Perhaps you could do a series on authentically cool places to go.
Unfortunately, cool is transient, thanks to capitalism. As soon as somewhere becomes cool, the money moves in, and it becomes commercial, and therefore uncool.
Hackney Wick is currently quite cool but give it a few years and it will likely go the way of Camden.
It'd be much shorter nowadays.
There are a load of rough+ready places south of the river. I'd recommend the Bermondsey Beer Mile (bar crawl from South Bermondsey to London Bridge) but there are a bunch of other weird side streets around there that are the same as they were 20 years ago. Hoxton (East London) is also still ok(ish). Typically I'd say if you want a night out akin to London circa 2000 then visit somewhere else like Manchester.
Here's what you do: go to a neighbourhood boozer on a friday night, the kind that everyone from the area goes to but that would not pass for cool in anyone's book. Have drinks with the patrons, be interested and nice, maybe buy a round. There will be a time when some of the more interesting people will leave for another bar/club whathaveyou and you'll ask if you can join them. That's the how you get to the cool place. London or Antarctica.
Camden Town and the Battersea Power Station redevelopment were by far my favourite areas in London
Jago, have you ever considered doing a video on the proposed split of the Northern Line, which would include a mandatory rebuild of the Camden Town station? Or maybe how the split could be done while leaving the station as is? (maybe with interchanges only in Euston and Kennington?)
I'd thought this video was going to be about that
I think Mornington Crescent found be expanded to be an interchange as well
@@Inkyminkyzizwoz same, actually
@@seansoraghan3245 I believe Mornington Crescent is only on one branch? So they could do an OSI between MC and CT, with MC on one branch and CT only on the other branch
@@miguelbarreira5005
Mornington station sits between both branches but is only connected to one
My idea is to connect to both branches the distance is fairly short
they were all a bit like 'a spaceship landed in Camden Town'! The most i know about Camden was how many bands cut their teeth in the area when there were many (in)famous pub venues, then later on into Britpop times where it became a fashionable place to get wasted (and be seen to be so by the hip press)
Another excellent piece of social commentary…Tomb raider experience…loved that one.,
Gentry-fying Camden to take advantage of its popularity would akin to someone buying a house in a leafy suburb and then cutting down the trees because of the mess in autumn. Campaign time to preserve character, m'thinks. And no, concrete and glass doth not form character even after a century.
Sports Direct says it all. I wonder how many of the independent stalls are actually part of a larger company sharing staff, warehouses and pricing.
Surely the key is to redevelop the station below ground, which is what has happened and is happening at Bank, although this might have to happen at a slightly different location as shutting the northern line for months at this location is not an option. Building a new second entrance would therefore make sense, as this could be the replacement temporary entrance whilst the original station is reworked, to then provide a final solution
Love those original tube stations on the Northern line. I remember getting off the National Express coach from Chesterfield at Golder's Green and getting on the tube.
I thought Camden Town was a Listed Building in a Conservation area...
I was there in 2011 and it was a great place to go during Saturday night! I hope it hasn't changed too much!
It must have been a New Labour/Cool Britannia thing to design all these ultra modern metal and glass buildings, without paying any attention to the surrounding environment. Yes Camden Town needs urgent rebuilding, and yes the Electric Ballroom is a toilet, but the proposals were just silly. Hounslow East was a clever design, but really does stick out. I do hope the Buck Street entrance idea for Camden Town eventually goes ahead, because some kind of addition is desperately needed.
For an example of how out-of-place the modern Camden Town would have looked, witness the Arts Depot in North Finchley. A true carbuncle that adds nothing to the area, but towers high and looks so out of place.
Can you imagine the S-ilt we'd be in, in the summer? Glass and steel with barely any mass to absorb heat, so everything goes directly into the ticket hall and creates a huge pocket of hot air. It'd have to be shut during the day, at the rate at which the heatwaves are going.
Camden Town, oh those glorious (are you sure?) formative teenage personal development time spent learning that because a place has a reputation for cool, doesn't mean it is anything beyond an expensive tourist trap. Although I did purchase a brilliant biker leather jacket for £40 which was one of the gems I got from the stolen gear/second hand market.
Great nights down the Camden Falcon as a teenager in the late 80's. Now sadly closed.
That was cool. I used to bank there when it was a Midlands! Loved living in Camden Town.
If I'd known your videos before I went to London I would have visited Camden Town. Thanks for this so fantastic show of this part of London
the study reminds me of Mr Fogg's Residence. as for the market it was designated to use repurposed containers so as to be quickly dismantled, and the school still on Buck street still remains closed after the the new one was built on Hawley Street the new canalised shops on the old markets conceal considerable construction underground opposite the old MTV studios/ Viacom offices similar to the old storage of the accurately named ice wharf Wetherspoons, one great loss is the redevelopment of the Old Morrisons supermarket & the Camden catacombs beneath it. Also at the rear of Darwin Court apartments on Gloucester Road opposite the Foxton's estate agent you would find the old steam engine rail entrance to the Hampstead line which runs under the Rotunda complex (the cylinderical Architecture is a giveaway as being the Vertical shaft) next to Gloucester Crescent
One of the things I miss most about London is drunkenly stumbling from Electric Ballroom down to Mornington Crescent at 3am on a sunday morning. fingers crossed they don't have the funds to do much for a while yet.
Electric Ballroom was my 3rd favourite nightclub in London, "back in the day".
"Electricity to my ball room" - now *that* would solve your blocked tubes in a very short time!
Hope you'll be back to full steam in the shortest time dear Jago 😊
One day about twenty(!) years ago now I was on a trip to London and visited Camden. On returning to Camden Town station there was a guy with a rather magnificent handlebar moustache manning the gate, only letting in so many people at a time to avoid a risk of crushing.
Grandson of Yerkes ?
I was a child of the Northern Line (High Barnet branch), arriving in Finchley, aged nine, when we'd migrated from Dublin. You could still see the odd bowler hatted gentleman then and the rush hour ended promptly at 9.30 and trains would run almost empty up till 4pm. They were the cosy 1930s carriages of old and the rails didn't scream at one like they do now. Anyway, Camden Town was taking off us a hip place, but concentrated within the immediate lock area. By 1984/85 I worked for a year on Oval Road and would pass Alan bennett with his string shopping basket, no doubt out doing Thora Hirds shopping for her. The company I worked for was Club 18-30 Holidays and I even became a Clubrep. Top company and very professional in spite of the company's notoriety. I remember many a drunken night in the Elephant's Head. This was all when Camden was still on a scale. I can't remember when I might last have been there and I'm more than happy to leave it to my past.
Jago's back in the day was hilarious, but I really couldn't pay attention to anything post Tomb Raider, I was laughing too much!
Get well soon, Jago!
Really interesting as always, and agreed on your views around the new station proposals at Camden. Also, that Tomb Raider gag really tickled me…
Looking at the discussions of the impact on Camden Town, as we all know by the time funds are raised, plans approved and construction started all the "cool kids" will be going to Osterley or Tooting Bec. Camden Town is where the cabbies take the tourists from Iowa.
TfL has already bought a lot of plots between Stucley Place, Buck Street and Kentish Town Road in order to build the new primary ticket hall and entrance / exit. The current station building would serve as a secondary entrance / exit. There's just not enough money to redevelop the station's internal layout. And don't forget, redevelopment of the station's platforms and concourses is also a necessity in order to seperate both the eastern section of the Northern line from the western section.
I remember the squabble over this, though I never managed to make it to the Ballroom as Full Tilt ended and when visiting London I'd usually end up in the Devonshire Arms followed by Hotel Slimelight (Angel Station, left left and left). Also remember getting pieced on a whim in Cold Steel
Last time I went to Camden it was very different, much more big brands and it doesn't surprise me that things like Sports Direct and Tomb Raider have moved in. The Goths seem to have decamped to Holloway and Archway, not sure where the punks have gone. Underworld is still there though! I also bet that Cyberdog still needs a second mortgage!
Now it's brands and hipsters maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to rebuild the station?
Nothbound platforms at Camden Town are split according to which line the trains are destined to go on, which is useful, wheras the southbound platforms are split, but determined by where the trains have come FROM, which is not so useful, but difficult to avoid during construction, hence the dot-matrix indicators on the concourse at the foot of the escalators.
My husband agrees that I am the electricity to his ballroom
We need to popularise the word "shopping citadel" for Westfield type things...!
I love that phrase
Oh you absolute bugger. I've just had to clean red wine off my laptop screen because of your Tomb Raider line. Well played!
The first proposal, while still being upmarket, appears like it would have fit into the surroundings quite well, what with only being a story or two taller than the surroundings.
The newest proposal with the second entrance is quite nice!
Yes feels like we need a part two on the latest proposal which has some clever thinking; Hasnt TFL bought an old school building there as well?
"Despite the fact that many of the grubbier venues have been redeveloped, don't even get me started." Don't get me started either Jago!
I agree with rebuilding Camden Town station from scratch. It's a nightmare to use!
Great video Jago. I spent a lot of the 70s and 80s in Camden. I worked on a comic book stall in the then tiny Camden Market. I used to buy 50s rock n roll records from Ted Carroll's Rock On records which was right by the station entrance on the Kentish Town Road side. Great memories.
Pods are what peas grow in, and things were deffo better, when I were a lad, so there!
With you Jago on everything you said about Camden Town area/market. I guess we are a similar age. Man it has changed. Sigh. I guess one thing you can say is that at least it didn't totally close (like Kensington) and the Electric Ballroom was saved.
Oh you old curmudgeon Jago 😃😃 I am just reading L.T.C.Rolt's book "Narrow Boat", where at least twice on every page he wails: "Old good: New bad".
I see the grafitti HELCH at 10.44, there's a huge on of those on the railway bridge across the M25 between jcts 16 and 17, it replaced give peas a chance and the Queen Mother is hip. They go back awhile as you can imagine. I always wonder how the hell they get up there and do it without being seen, especially with all the CCTV these days.
If Camden gets redeveloped, they should keep the original frontage, and somehow include a decent sized venue above the station, it'd be a no-brainer if you ask me!
Use to love going to Camden Market in the 80s and 90s, first in my young Mod days, then my love for the new indie sounds took me to Camden and Kensington Market.... Ahhh we miss you Kensington Market 😪 but you are right, it's kind of lost its gritty charm, its becoming clinically clean.... Bahhhhh🤮
Brings back many memories that hsbc was my first bank when I was a teenager 😂
The environment of Camden Town, with all its clubs and other entertainment reminds of notorious "Block E" in Minneapolis, where I grew up. The whole block was flattened in 1988, and nothing would replace it besides a parking lot until 2001. It was a shopping and hotel complex of no special merit, that became a desolate failure in 10 years. At least the gentrification of Camden Town isn't leading to too much demolition, just more expensive venues going into the existing buildings.
Found my favorite pair of Doc Marten's at British Boot Company in Camden Town.
The 'favourite' plan looks very 1930s to me because of all the singly-curved glass, slender-pillared balcony, and minimalist suggestion of an awning. Unlike many 1930s buildings, I like it.
Chalk Farms is an interesting sight. I associate Leslie Green's stations with very rectangular shapes, if not outright squares. This is different. ... Oh, um, Leicester Square is also a Leslie Green design on a corner, but works better, to my mind. It doesn't try to have a rounded corner.
Monopoly introduced me to the word "mall" when my mother informed me that Pell Mell should be pronounced "Pall Mall". Make of that what you will. :)
Oh... why didn't I realize none of these stations would suit Camden Town? Probably because the 'favourite' beguiled me. :)
Love your videos. Always informative and always funny keep it up.
I can only see PCSO Costas tutting and telling off the visitors outside The Tube entrance.