Camden

Markets in a Victorian goods yard, and the small venues where London bands play their first real gigs.

Camden Town was laid out from 1791 as a respectable suburb, named after the Earl Camden who owned the ground, and then had its respectability taken away by transport. The Regent's Canal came through in 1816 and the railway arrived in 1837. Everything that makes the place now is the wreckage of that, put to another use: the goods yards, the horse hospital where the animals that hauled the barges were stabled, and the Roundhouse of 1847, a shed built to turn locomotives and now a concert hall. The markets began small, with a craft market at Camden Lock in 1973 in a yard beside the canal. It spread into the stables and the streets around them and now runs most of the way from the station to Chalk Farm. What it sells has changed, less craft and more street food, but the crowd it pulls has not. Music is the other half. The Roundhouse had Pink Floyd and Hendrix in the 1960s; the Electric Ballroom, the Dublin Castle and the Underworld are where bands play the gig before anyone has heard of them, and the pubs were Britpop's front room. Amy Winehouse lived, drank and sang here, and her statue stands in the Stables Market. It is loud, crowded and not remotely polished, which is the appeal. Come on a weekday to see the place; come on a Saturday to see everybody else.