Performance venues

London's stages and concert rooms: the West End houses and the playhouses that make their own shows, the grand halls, the churches with a musical life, the jazz basements, the comedy clubs, the clubs proper, the rooms above pubs where things start, and the booth on Leicester Square that sells off what the West End has not. What is on is listed under each venue, and in What's On.

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Blackheath Halls

Built by public subscription in 1895, and by its own account the oldest purpose-built cultural venue left standing in London.

ClassicalGigsComedy clubWorth it for the building

The people of Blackheath paid for it themselves in 1895, by subscription, and got a 600-seat Great Hall and a 160-seat recital room out of it. Nearly a century later the same neighbourhood had to save it from demolition; it reopened in 1991 after a long restoration and has been busy since.

It belongs to Trinity Laban now - the conservatoire owns it outright and uses it as its main stage - so the classical programme is unusually strong for an outer-London hall, with student and professional players in the same season. Around that there is folk, rock, pop and stand-up, which is what a Victorian hall in a village-sized suburb has to do to stay open.

The thing it is known for is the community opera: a full production each autumn with a professional orchestra and principals, and a chorus of several hundred local people who audition for nothing more than turning up. Carmen was this year's.

Where
23 Lee Road, SE3 9RQ
Nearest station
Blackheath · 2 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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