The Royal Agricultural Hall (now the Business Design Centre) is a Grade II listed building which opened in 1862 in the district of Islington in London for holding agricultural shows. It was the home of the Royal Smithfield Club's Smithfield Show from 1862 to 1938. It hosted the Royal Tournament from its inauguration in 1880 until the event became too large for the venue and moved to Olympia in the early years of the 20th century. It hosted the first Crufts dog show in 1891. During the Second World War the hall was commandeered by the Government, and from 1943, following the destruction of Mount Pleasant sorting office in an air raid, the Parcels Depot was moved to the hall. The hall then remained unused and empty until it was converted to its present use as the Business Design Centre in 1986.
Read more about Business Design Centre: Origins, Expansion, Business Design Centre, Archival Records
Famous quotes containing the words business, design and/or centre:
“Gratitude among friends is like credit among tradesmen: it keeps business up, and maintains commerce. And we pay not because it is just to discharge our debts, but that we might the more easily find lenders on another occasion.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ... for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the centre of his cage
The pacing animal
Surveys the jungle cove
And slicks his slithering wiles
To turn the venereal awl
In the livid wound of love.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)