Priory Centre, St Neots
Priory Centre, St Neots
We provided conservation advice for the retrofit and extension of a late twentieth-century civic and cultural centre to create an enhanced multi-performance venue in the historic market town of St Neots, near Cambridge.
The Priory Centre is a well loved, 40 year old barn-like building that is both a community centre and home to St Neots Town Council. It has two performance spaces – the Great Hall and the Guest Hall – with a café bar, support facilities and a river terrace. The building sits on the banks of the River Great Ouse in the St Neots Conservation Area and adjacent to two listed buildings and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Built in the 1980s on the site of the old Priory Brewery, it resonates with the forms and materials of the 18th century industrial architecture, including an adjacent listed Oast House. However, the existing building suffered from poor fabric performance, and many systems needed upgrading or were at the end of their operational life. Working with AOC Architecture, we were asked to inform and support proposals to create a viable community venue that could support a community business plan and provide an enhanced cluster of vital community services.
The redeveloped building will provide a greater diversity of rooms – in area, volume and character – to support a wide range of performances, conferences, community groups and family events. A new timber clad Moot Hall, with town council offices above, will open up onto the riverside terrace, whilst the Great Hall will be transformed into a 430-seat auditorium, with retractable tiered seating. An opened up ground-floor foyer will connect to the river bank – providing the town with an inclusive public interior.
A key driver for the project is to improve building performance towards net zero operational carbon. By reusing a forty year old building, the project minimises the embodied carbon of the new centre, whilst new interventions and extensions prioritise the use of timber and low-carbon materials. The Priory Centre’s energy supply will be converted from a hybrid gas and electricity consumption to an electricity-only site, whilst the boiler chimney will be replaced with an air exhaust for a highly efficient heat exchanger. The roof will be fitted with photovoltaic panels to generate clean electricity on-site.
When complete, the refurbished venue will become an essential local destination for theatre, music, comedy and community life. The project was granted planning approval in September 2024.
Client: Huntingdon District Council with St Neots Town Council
Architect: AOC Architecture