If you care about the future of Camden Lock Market, it might be worth swinging by a public exhibition running tomorrow and Saturday (18th and 19th of July).
The proposals seek to “safeguard its heritage of creativity” and the relatively ambitious multi-million pound revamp (see box) has been guided by discussions with traders, residents and visitors. But first, let’s hear from the boss.
Who are you, and how did you come to own the Lock?
My name is Will Fulford and I’m co-founder of the Urban Market Company. Our story is a simple one: while studying as a medic, my dad was also doing small scale residential developments with his friend Peter Wheeler. They wanted their next project to be commercial, and so he offered his medic friends a £100 finder’s fee to anyone who came up with a good site.
One suggested Dingwalls Wharf by Hampstead Road Lock. It had just been handed back to British Waterways (now C&RT), and my dad and Peter won an informal tender to take over the remainder of the lease. At the time, the area was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a new motorway, so there wasn’t much competition. It opened in 1972 with the new name, Camden Lock. The rest, I guess you could say, is history.
40 years on, why do you want to transform the Lock Market?
We’ve put together our Camden Lock Manifesto which will guide our decisions on how to populate the space. Central to this is the dual goal of a) becoming relevant to our local resident/worker communities, and b) re-engaging with a wider London audience. Both of these were founding principles, but somewhere along the line we lost our way a little as the area became more famous and built up around us.
The proposals in more detail
The Urban Market Company (UMC) plans to double the enclosed area and increase trading space by 15,000 square feet. This will enable diverse events from fashion shows and music concerts to performance art to take place in its open yards, upgraded existing spaces and extending Market Hall. 
The proposals do see some later buildings removed. The building housing Dingwalls will be demolished to be incorporated into an extension of the existing Market Hall.
The Dingwalls decision must be a difficult one?
My dad was one of the four founding partners of Dingwalls as a music venue, so it has huge nostalgic value. However, even the current owners admit it doesn’t do what it needs to do for a contemporary venue, and we are working with them on their requirements for the future.
Our plan is to weave music and culture into everything we do at Camden Lock. We are creating new cultural spaces and building flexibility into existing spaces. At the moment we can only run events by displacing our traders. In the future we will be able to poetry readings, jazz and outdoor cinemas without interrupting the livelihoods of the people who trade on site. This is one of the most exciting elements of the plans. It allows us to build our own calendar of events throughout the year.
What’s this about a subterranean restaurant?
Dead Dog Basin is one of the hidden gems of Camden Town’s industrial past. It’s where the canal boats and the railways met to interchange their goods. It has a basin inside the building and is a phenomenal, if challenging, space. The plan is to have a mixture of larger retail and restaurant uses, some of which will break out over the water to open up views to the even older Victorian arches on the other side of the basin. We don’t know who will go in there yet, but true to the Manifesto, they will have to be doing something completely unique and relevant to Londoners.
So it’s about achieving a balance between being a neighbourhood asset and a tourist destination?
When I visit another city I want to go where the locals go. When visitors come to Camden Lock I want them to feel that this is a part of London where the locals go. That’s the philosophy we are taking forward.
On a personal note, we hear you’ve moved to Kentish Town. Where?
Around the same time as Camden Lock opened my folks moved into Primrose Hill where I was born three years later (it was a very different place then). After university I moved to Montpelier Grove in Kentish Town. I now live by Talacre Gardens, so I haven’t exactly been too adventurous. But then why would you want to live anywhere else? I feel very privileged to have been a Kentishtowner for 15 years.
Where do you like to hang out and what excites you about the area?
When I first moved here there were six murders in three months, one of them right outside my door. But it still had a great community atmosphere. I used to spend a lot of time in the Junction, but now it’s more Camden Town Brewery and The Fields Beneath, which has the best sausage rolls in London. It’s a hugely exciting time, with a lot of creativity coming into the area and new cafes and bars popping up all over the place. I’m dreading the inevitable march of the chains along the high street, but so far they seem to be largely ignoring us.
2 thoughts on “10 minutes with: Will Fulford, owner, Camden Lock”
Will says he’s “dreading the inevitable march of the chains along the high street” yet has recently signed up two shoe shops to Camden Lock which already have stores in the United States, South Africa, Europe and Hong Kong, shops in the UK and multiple concessions worldwide. It seems likely that the new development will attract similar brands and these can only push out through higher rents, the truly unique and independent shops which have made Camden Lock their home for the past 40 years.
That isn’t the original Dingwalls building anyway. I remember seeing bands at the original DIngwalls before the new one was built 20+ years ago. No-one liked the new venue at the time, regarding it as badly designed and faceless.
I wonder whether this bloke will do any better or whether he’s just a money grubbing neocon, set to obliterate Camden Market with Tie Racks, Sock Shops, Accessorize, Jigsaw and all the other usual suspects?