Battersea Arts Centre

The Battersea Arts Centre stands in the London Borough of Wandsworth, near Clapham Junction railway station. It occupies a former town hall built in 1891 from Suffolk red brick and Bath stone. The building replaced Jane Senior’s Elm House, a villa with a small wooded estate. In 1927 Bertrand Russell delivered his talk Why I Am Not a Christian in the hall. The centre became a community arts venue in 1974 and gained Grade II* listed status in 1970 after a campaign by the Victorian Society and Battersea Society. The centre specialises in theatre productions and supports new work through a ‘scratch’ methodology. David Jubb served as Artistic Director from 2004 to 2019, followed by Tarek Iskander. Past productions include Punchdrunk’s promenade performance of The Masque of the Red Death, seen by over 400,000 people. The centre also hosts the annual Battersea Beer Festival every February since 1991. Visitors find a mix of theatre spaces, bars and meeting rooms across the restored building. The Grand Hall, rebuilt after a 2015 fire, features a vaulted plywood ceiling and scorched corridors left bare. The 19th-century mosaic floor survived the fire intact. Smaller venues and the Members Library remain open, and the centre continues to host shows, weddings and filming.