A rotting north London warehouse earmarked for flats has been transformed into a cutting-edge ‘makerspace’. Can it restore the area to its former inventive glory?
From guns and vacuum flasks to cookers and colour televisions, Enfield has long been a cradle of invention. Rifles, radios, motorbikes and dishwashers were all made in this fertile corner of north-east London’s Lea Valley, which also gave birth to the world’s first cash machine – now memorialised with a golden ATM on the high street.
There may be heritage plaques a-plenty, but the glory days of local industry are long gone. The sheds of production have been replaced by the big box stores of Ikea and Wickes, the stable careers in skilled manufacturing exchanged for zero-hours warehouse contracts, in what are now some of the most deprived wards in the country. A place that was once Britain’s equivalent to Silicon Valley has more recently been known as “Shanktown”, on the proposition that, because of its violent reputation, you would be more likely to get stabbed there than dream up the next world-changing invention.
But, lurking in among this ragged edgeland of retail depots, redundant gasworks and puffing waste incinerators, one shed offers a glimmer of hope – and a possible prototype for a new kind of productive local economy. Next to a cash and carry warehouse and a ready-mix concrete supplier stands Bloqs, a new £4m temple for London’s growing army of makers.
