The creative retrofit and extension of a late 20th-century cultural centre to create an enhanced multi-performance venue in St Neots, a historic market town 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 with fantastic potential.

The building sits on the banks of the River Great Ouse in the St Neots Conservation Area. 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 the adjacent listed Oast House, that define the backlands to the Georgian fronted medieval market Square.

Few changes have been made to the centre's fabric since its original construction. A thorough review of construction drawings from the archives and careful site investigations revealed that the building suffered from poor fabric performance, and many systems needed upgrading or were at the end of their operational life.

The design has been developed to support the expressed opinions of a Building Development Group comprised of local community members and representatives of Huntingdon District Council and St Neots Town Council. Through a structured set of engagement and co-design sessions, the design was developed in response to agreed priorities: creating a viable community venue that supports a community business plan and providing an enhanced cluster of vital community services. The refurbished venue will become an essential local destination for theatre, music, comedy and community life.

Extended rooms, new balconies and increased openings improve access and connections with the river, the site’s greatest amenity. A new timber clad Moot Hall, with town council offices above, opens up onto the riverside terrace.

Through its physical hardware and operational software the Priory Centre is designed to be an essential part of St Neots’ social infrastructure. The redeveloped building provides a greater diversity of rooms – in area, volume and character – to support full use throughout the day, week, and year. This provides convenient facilities for a wide range of performances, conferences, community groups and family events.

The Great Hall is transformed into a 430 seat auditorium, with retractable tiered seating and balcony ensuring excellent sightlines for all members of the audience. New and refined openings ensure the auditorium can be both a black box performance space and a naturally lit hall for community and commercial use. The Guest Hall functions as a multi format studio theatre for an audience of 120. An opened up ground-floor foyer now connects to river bank - providing the town with an inclusive public interior that supports a convivial social ecology.

By reusing a forty year old building the project minimises the embodied carbon of the new centre. New interventions and extensions prioritise the use of timber and low-carbon materials. A key driver for the project is to improve building performance towards net zero operational carbon. The Priory Centre’s energy supply is converted from a hybrid gas and electricity consumption to an electricity-only site, reducing on-site CO2 emissions. The boiler chimney is replaced with an air exhaust for a highly efficient heat exchanger. The removal of the gas boiler facilities necessitates the provision of an open-air heat rejection plant on the roof of the ‘north end’. The refurbished roof is fitted with photovoltaic panels to generate clean electricity on-site, an important long-term strategy for reducing costs and energy demands across the national grid.

Competitive tender. First Prize. Opens 2025.