Victorian tram depot in Clapton set for revival

A historic tram site in Hackney could be given a new lease of life under fresh planning proposals for business units and a food-and-drink space.

Plans to refurbish the Victorian-era Clapton Tram Depot building were submitted to Hackney Council last month after years of stalled developments.

If approved, the street-facing building will undergo a significant makeover, with five brick arches installed in its 68-metre façade. The proposals also include an upper-level communal terrace connected to its roughly 100 sq m public courtyard.

Though not a listed building, the council has set strict heritage standards for any redevelopment, which have forced the developer, Tram Gate Capital Ltd, to revise the project.

To meet these rigorous requirements, the scheme’s architects, Yellow Cloud Studio, claim to have studied the history of 19th-century tram depots to justify their installation of the arches.

Parts of the depot have been used as a creative and commercial hub for 25 years, with more than 20 independent businesses presently occupying the building. But other aspects of the site, which have languished in disrepair, will become the new development’s core.

A single-storey building on the corner, vacant since 2024, is set for demolition and rebuild as a two-storey structure housing six commercial units.

The “wall” belonging to the original tram shed, where horses that drew the tram carriages were historically kept, is set to undergo extensive refurbishment after decades of ad-hoc, “inconsiderate and unattractive alterations”.

The developer promises that the scheme will deliver 20 full-time jobs as part of the transformation of the site’s vacant corner, which has been disused since 2024.

Horse-drawn history

Originally used for horse-drawn trams hauling Londoners between Clapton and Aldgate, the depot is one of the last surviving structures of its kind in the capital, according to the Hackney Society.

The North Metropolitan Tramways Company purchased the site in 1873, before it was later taken over by the London County Council and then London Transport in 1933, by which point the city had switched to using electric trams.

At its height, the depot housed around 600 horses, and campaigners have described it as the only surviving horse-drawn tram complex in Britain outside Sheffield.

Demolition threat

In 2011, then-owners Executec Ltd won planning permission to bulldoze the buildings and make way for 85 flats, along with car parking and industrial units, despite stiff opposition from local campaigners.

The demolition permission passed by a single vote, despite a rival community proposal – backed by the Hackney Society, the Victorian Society and all six local councillors – to convert the depot into an arts centre at the heart of a “Clapton cultural quarter”.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport had declined to list the building in 2005, and its local listing, granted in 2010, carried no statutory protection.

Although several businesses were driven off the site ahead of the planned demolition, Executec sold the premises in 2014 to Upper Clapton Ltd before any work commenced.

Should the council approve the latest proposals, works are anticipated to commence by February 2027.