23, Macklin Street

CAMDEN

TQ3081SW MACKLIN STREET 798-1/105/1096 (West side) 07/06/82 No.23

GV II

Formerly known as: No.36 CHARLES STREET. Painting rooms for theatrical scenery. 1851-52. Large stucco- fronted building of rectangular plan. 3 storeys 3 bays, the openings in full height round arched recesses. Central loading doors on upper floors, flanked by sash windows with glazing bars. Ground floor openings altered at centre and left. Half glazed door and small window at right. INTERIOR: not inspected but the large interior space, with its paint frame, a large cast-iron frame designed to be winched up and down through a slot in the floor so that the artist painting a scenic backcloth can work comfortably at first-floor level, survives and is the earliest known survival of a separate scene-painting premises outside a theatre. HISTORICAL NOTE: of considerable historical interest as having been the workshop of Thomas Grieve and Son, scenic artists, from 1851 to 1879, who initiated the system of free-lance painters working on their own premises rather than within theatres.

Listing NGR: TQ3038681377