IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Delaware Road, LONDON, W9 2LH

The BBC Maida Vale Studios on Delaware Road in Maida Vale. The studios, currently under threat of closure, have mainly been used for BBC radio 3 classical music recordings.

Maida Vale is a residential district comprising the northern part of Paddington in west London.

Maida Vale Studios is a complex of seven BBC studios on Delaware Road. It has been used to record thousands of classical music, popular music and drama sessions for BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 6 Music since 1946. Music sessions were once a mainstay of BBC Radio programming as there were strict limits on the amount of commercially recorded music that could be aired (known as needle-time restrictions), so the BBC regularly booked musicians to record music exclusively for broadcast. The site was built in 1909 as the "Maida Vale Roller Skating Palace and Club". Over a period of fifteen months in 1933/1934, the skating rink was reduced to a shell and then rebuilt. The arches at the doorway were preserved. It was one of the BBC's earliest premises, pre-dating Broadcasting House, and was the centre of the BBC News operation during World War II. It has been the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1934, where they have given invitation concerts, usually free. An unusual feature of these concerts is that they were often recorded, which means that in later years the orchestra sometimes were able to do re-takes. It is the largest classical music studio in London. In 1958 the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, most famous for the “Dr Who” theme, was created and based here until its demise in 1998, and the pioneering "Delaware" synthesiser made by EMS takes its name from the Studios' address.

A terrace on the north-east side of the road, seen from the junction with Sutherland Avenue.

Looking towards Sutherland Avenue

I believe that this is a vent for the pipe through which the River Westbourne was diverted in 1850, during the building of Maida Vale.

The Maida Vale Public Library is on the corner of Sutherland Avenue and Shirland Road. It has recently been modernised inside, but before this modernisation it held the criminology department of the British Library on the first floor (around the current balcony area). One other odd fact about it is that it doubled as the police station in the 1980s ITV series, Minder, improvised by simply placing a "Police" sign on the gatepost.

While most of the buildings in the Maida Vale and Maida Hill areas of London were built as flats (known locally as "mansion blocks"), some terraces were built with whole houses. Since then most of these have now been converted into flats.