It’s been more than two years in the making, but the first part of the redeveloped Arding & Hobbs building has opened to the public. Botanica Hall, part of the small Albion & East group of pub / restaurants, has raced to the finish line to catch the all-important month before Christmas. It’s their sixth location – building on venues up and running in Hackney, Old Street, Brixton, Crouch End and Ealing, and the prime location in a flagship building on the busiest crossroads in the Borough means it’s quickly become a popular spot. What was last open to the public as the perfumery section of Debenhams – whose closure we broke the news on all the way back in 2019 – has seen a major tidy-up, with the removal of the 1960s canopy over the pavement to recreate full height windows, restoring the original stonework, and opening up the internal space to create an impressive venue.

At its heart is a solid food and drink venue, complete with full size pizza oven and lots of internal space – as well as some pavement seating that’s mostly for show for now but which may come in to its own in the summer. Breakfast is on offer daily from 9, as well as a weekend brunch, with an option to have a two-hour ‘bottomless’ one if you are really hungry (or thirsty!). There’s a quiz night – ‘Fizz & Quiz’ – every Wednesday, with bottles of fizz £15 from 5pm till close, and the quiz starting at 7.30.

Albion & East started in 2016, when ways of working were already evolving in some businesses – and have run a hot desking option every week right from the start – which runs every weekday from 8 to 5 (and later if there’s space – if the table you;re on is booked the staff will see if there are other spaces available). It’s free, it’s backed by powerful WiFi, and it runs on a just turn up basis, but with an option of daily, weekly or monthly ‘Hotdesk Passes’ which provide an infinite supply of the full range of coffee options as well as teas & hot chocolates, seven days a week, to have in or take out (which can be used across all the Albion & East venues).

Albion & East have run their own small distillery for seven years in Hackney, and added a small new one at every successive venue they opened – working together with Tiny Tower Liquor to make a range of products for sale – while still producing, bottling and wax sealing all of their gins and vodkas by hand. Our new local venue Botanica Hall includes their biggest distillery yet, with a 180 litre copper still, where they plan to distil their own vodka. They plan to host Vodka & Gin Tastings and Gin Blending Masterclasses, where you can blend, bottle and wax seal your own gin to take home.

This is just the start of a new life for Arding & Hobbs, which we have written many articles on! The office space is a whisker away from completion (with future occupiers yet to be confirmed). The next part of the building to open may well be Third Space, a large and very luxurious gym over three levels (see our article on that, including many artists’ impressions of what’s in store, here). There’s one large retail unit remaining – which had been lined up to be an Amazon Fresh supermarket until Amazon slowed down their UK plans, and which we understand is currently on the market. It’s been a pretty impressive transformation overall, and we suspect W.RE, the developers behind the recent works, will be pleased to have got to this big milestone on the four year transformation of Clapham Junction’s flagship building.