Camden News: Museum uncovers pieces of key Victorian industry

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Camden News - By DAN CARRIER
Published: 10 April 2008

Alan Yentob with museum director Ricki Burman

Museum uncovers pieces of key Victorian industry

BUILDERS have discovered Victorian machinery as they turn a former piano factory into an extension to the Jewish Museum in Camden Town.
As BBC creative director Alan Yentob, a patron of the museum, toured the building on Monday, he was shown long-forgotten crank shafts embedded in the ground. They had driven the belts and pulleys workers used to turn out thousands of upright parlour pianos when Camden Town was the centre of the musical instrument industry in the 19th century.
Mr Yentob heard how the £9.2 million project is expected to be ready late next year. Under the plans, the museum in Albert Street is to quadruple in size by extending into the former factory behind its existing Grade-II listed building.
Mr Yentob was joined by museum chairman Robert Craig and Camden mayor Councillor Dawn Somper. They heard that as well as three floors of exhibition space, the extended museum will house a 100-seat auditorium and a café serving Jewish deli food.
Mr Yentob revealed that he knows what it’s like to have the builders in. “I am currently renovating a medieval home in Somerset,” he said.

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