Let’s do the time warp: Inception co-founders Charlie Gilkes, left, and Duncan Stirling
(Picture: Press handout)The £9 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment has announced a new bar set to open on its historic grounds, which will join the eight restaurants named in February, and a new Arcade Food Hall from hospitality giants JKS.
The Inception Group — operators best known for the Mr Fogg’s chain, the Bunga Bunga bars and Cahoots — will open Control Room B on October 14. It will welcome the public, rather than just the development’s residents.
The literally-named bar, which transforms the room where technicians once controlled the distribution of electricity to a fifth of the capital, was first teased in November of last year.
Mimicking the brutalist, steel-and-ceramic-clad style of the restored room, originally built during the Forties and Fifties, the bar will use mid-century inspired furniture and glassware, while the arced central bar is said to have been inspired by turbines. As a nod to the technicians who worked in the room before it closed in 1983, staff will be dressed in white boiler suits.
Opening at 10am, the all-day offering will serve pastries, tea and coffee first thing, before switching to a cocktail menu later on. Details are somewhat scant, but the publicity bumf announcing the opening says drinks will be “influenced by the Power Station and the 1950s Control Room through vessels and ingredients used.”
Though protected by clear screens, the room’s original control room fittings, desks and switchgear remain in place. They will be familiar to those who’ve seen the Beatles film Help — scenes were filmed here — and the room also appeared on the cover of Hawkwind album Quark, Strangeness And Charm.
Control Room B was one of two control rooms at the coal-fired power station; the other — unsurprisingly called Control Room A — was built earlier, in the Thirties, and was finished in an art deco style. Between them, the pair coordinated the 66kV output of the station, which sent electricity across London, including into the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. It’s enormous output, alongside the four spire-like chimneys, meant the power station was nicknamed “the Cathedral of power”.
Inception Group co-founder Charlie Gilkes said of the opening: “We couldn’t be more excited to be opening a bar within the most iconic part of one of London’s most important landmarks.
“Having lived in Battersea my whole life, it’s amazing to be playing a part in the most exciting redevelopment project for many years and to be bringing this space back to life.”
Sam Cotton, head of leasing at Battersea Power Station Development Company, added: “Inception Group’s ever-evolving immersive experience offering made them the perfect fit for a unique venue like Control Room B.
“In just a few weeks time, members of the public will be able to get up close to the Control Room’s original dials and controls, whilst sipping on a coffee or cocktail, and soaking up the history of the Grade II* listed Power Station. It’s going to be a very special moment and one I’m very much looking forward to.”
Though residents of the complex moved in last year, October 14 marks the day the power station fully reopens as a retail, entertainment, residential and office complex, almost four decades after it was decommissioned in 1983.
