7 December, 2007
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.
Comment by Janatan — 7 December, 2007, 8:37 am
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
Comment by Ani — 7 December, 2007, 10:57 am
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.
Comment by drodbar — 7 December, 2007, 3:32 pm
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…
Comment by miles away — 9 December, 2007, 7:12 pm
Such a pity!
Comment by Miladysa — 9 December, 2007, 8:55 pm
My Christmas present was in there!
Comment by Brad — 10 December, 2007, 4:53 am
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]
Comment by An Unreliable Witness — 11 December, 2007, 8:58 am
Sad, like smashing ancient colossi to make a breakwall.
Comment by Lillipilli — 11 December, 2007, 6:10 pm
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.
Comment by Mark — 8 January, 2008, 3:58 pm
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
:’( :’(
Comment by Georgina — 8 March, 2008, 9:32 pm
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???!!!!
Comment by camdenite... — 20 March, 2008, 12:45 pm
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.
Comment by Eric Winter — 15 April, 2008, 2:39 pm
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?
Comment by Christina — 30 April, 2008, 4:25 am
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…
Comment by LJ — 20 July, 2008, 5:14 am
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.
Comment by Ben — 20 July, 2008, 11:01 am