They certainly didn’t waste any time. Having only seen it today I’ve no idea when it began.
“You Maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
Retro World is gone. The arch the surplus army store squatted in has been demolished. Those insane little stalls, deep within the catacombs that sold everything from shop dummy limbs to old coins to military buttons, Britpop badges and 1920s cricket bats now no longer exist. This is because the catacombs now no longer exist. Stables Market was Mos Eisley, Diagon Alley and the unseen vaults of the TARDIS all in one. It was one of my favourite parts of London. But now it’s all gone, forever. Irretrievably. It’s just rubble, bricks and dust.
The new Stables Market
Maybe the proposed redevelopment won’t look so bad. Maybe it will retain the character of the original Victorian market whilst improving accessibility, functionality and catchment, just as they say. Maybe it won’t be just another high street Bluewater.
Or maybe it doesn’t really matter what the new Stables Market will be like. Because it won’t be Stables Market. London has already lost one of its most unique and wonderful hidden treasures.
Forever.
So very very sad.
I’ve never stayed in a place long enough to see it torn down. Change is inevitable, of course. But new isn’t always better. I’m sorry.
xoxo
The evil modernisers are gradually eliminating the last pockets of resistance of the best of the human spirit. What I find most depressing is that the developers have made a reliable calculation based on an assumption that the public as a whole will spend more money at the new market than at the old one. Ultimately we’re up against our fellow human beings. But lets celebrate what we do find that is good, present and past.
it is somewhat interesting…however the modernisation / gentrification / purification has to happen at some time. Camden seems to have become a lot more popular and mainstream of late years, so what more to cater for the masses than regularity presented in retail…
Such a pity!
My Christmas present was in there!
My RSS feed for this site disappeared.
Please do not do that again. Or I shall protest most petulantly.
I do hope they replace all old buildings with nice branches of Homebase and Tesco.
[Er, not really]
Sad, like smashing ancient colossi to make a breakwall.
Soon the area will be full of stock brokers, sucking lattes through straws as they stride around, proudly observing the ‘progress’ and admiringly noting how the bohemians have been ousted to make way for more faux Vietnamese diners and fat American real-estate investor cunts.
i have loved camden 4 yrs and seeing this rly is sad and is a MARKET not
a mall there or loads of malls ronwnd london y did there not leave camden
alone 1st the fire and now this all of camden will be gone why did the fire
happen and y the mall its sooooooo bad
:’( :’(
Does anyone know what’s happening inside the Stables Horse Hospital(going to be a nightclub)? Because there’s an awful lot of building work going on there which makes me suspect some of the inside structure is being altered even tho it’s supposed to be protected by English Heritage!I also heard that they’ve demolished part of an outside support wall!
English Heritage are you listening-hello???!!!!
I used to go there all the the time and have always thought of the place
as almost totally unique, only Greenwich market has a similar sort of
atmosphere but on a much smaller scale. I am absolutely gobsmacked that
developers have been allowed to flatten the place and build what will
basically be (behind the marketing hype) a souless and shit shopping mall.
The stables have been there for so long, how on earth are a bunch of
developers going to replace it with something better?
something better for who? for us the people who live in London and go to
Camden? of course not. I and many people I know are absolutely furious
about what has happened. It’s a fucking disgrace full stop.
What the hell!!? I can’t believe it. I just found this site. I’m coming for a visit to the UK after being in USA (yes, Bush is an arse)for many years. Planned to take my 16-year-old twins to see Camden. I won’t bother now. What’s the point? The soul is gone. What will I say? Look at this fabulous new shopping mall just like we have at home in Seattle?
TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE BLOG ….
HELLO SIR,
NICE PAGE BUT YOU ARE A LITTLE WRONG …..
THIS IS NOT TRUE ARMY SUPLUS AND ALL THE OTHER YOU MENTIONED ARE STILL IN CAMDEN ITS
JUST MOVED UNDERNEITH INTO THE D RING SECTION. GO TO CAMDEN AGAIN LOOK PROPERLY YOU WILL BE HAPPY AGAIN
:-) THANK YOU LOU
STALLHOLDER…
Please note this entry was written 8 months ago when demolition began and before the D building opened!
What they’ve done with the place since is certainly much more impressive than I was expecting, but this post wasn’t about the loss of specific stalls (on which note Retro World is still not to be found – I have indeed gone back for a proper look more than once. There are certainly several similar stalls now, but the original seems to have disappeared, changed name or split. Having spoken with a stallholder while I was last there, he confirmed that a number of stalls have sold up or moved on from Camden since the arches and catacombs closed).
This post is about the original site itself and its history – mostly personal to me from my own memories there. In that regard, I am not wrong in saying that the Stables Market I remember no longer exists.
I should repeat however that the redevelopment thus completed is certainly very impressive in keeping with the original feel of the market – much more than I was expecting, if a little more cramped and harder to move through. Whether they have indeed damaged a grade 2 listed property to complete it (redevelopment of the Horse Hospital) remains to be proven.
havn’t been round camden in ages ! whatever happened to the stables market ? ‘s it still alive ?
im sorry but it had to go i work in the stables market and it leaked it was damp and was going to fall down if it wasnt pulled down, but trust me the new building has used old victorian brick to creat new archways and little hide aways it is magnificent with over 200% of the space and its full of statues of horses as well as the new cyberdog where i work if u have not seen it u must this summer
Hi,
It has made me sad to hear of the demise of the once amazing Stable Markets. I was there not long before the markets closed and made a quick vid with a link to this page and it’s photo of the Stables in rubble. You can find the vid here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jydj9zRTF2U
The Stables is a total ugly mess!
Shops closing left right & everywhere thanks to ridiculous rent rises in the midst of a recession-see http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23739044-details/75+per+cent+rent+rises+%27will+kill+off+Camden+traders%27/article.do
The Stables ‘acquired’ the Save Camden Stables Market campaign website, took it down, & put it up again with all kinds of c*** on it unrelated to the campaign.
Good news is that the campaign has a new website online soon – along with the complete & original Forum! http://www.savecamdenstables.co.uk
It has to be said that most of the old stables market was unaffected by this development,
And there are two storeys here, one about greedy land grabs, i.e. the Gilgamesh
building, And certain aspects of the former catacomb area,ie upper floors.
and the quality put in to the reinstated brick work and arches which is no token gesture, and actually breath taking in my view. The ally by the renovated arches is now one of my favourite part of the market.
The character of the market hasn’t changed and the aesthetic consideration put in to the Rebuilding of what is just a part of the stables market is almost unprecedented.
There are negative impacts as well, the size and blandness of the Gilgamesh building(glass building don’t age well)and big basement area, under part of the stables.
It would have been better if they had not demolished anything , but what they have done
In terms of re-instated brick work and imaginative fittings is one hell of a consolation.
Yeah, sort of said that.
Thanks for your comments, all.