Chalk Farm history

You would think ‘Chalk Farm’ would have something to do with chalk, but it doesn’t. In Anglo Saxon times there was a village here called Caldecote, which just meant ’cold cottages’.  This became Chalcot in mediaeval times. It was an ignorant inn keeper who built a pub on the site of Chalcot Farm and and converted Chalcot to Chalk House. There’s a Chalcot Estate (formerly the Eton Estate).

Much more interesting than this, in my opinion, is how the Roundhouse Theatre came about. In 1851 the London to Birmingham Railway was being built and Chalk Farm was one end of the line. So the railway company constructed “the Round House” to hold the turntable on which the trains could be turned round, to be sent back to Birmingham.  When Chalk Farm ceased to be a rail terminus, the Round House was no longer needed and in 1960 it was turned into a theatre.

In the 19th century, much of the land was owned by Eton College who developed it for housing. The Eton Estate which covered much of the local area was redesigned by Camden Council in the 1960s and renamed Chalcot’s Estate after the mediaeval name.