Ray Davies said he would love to play the Town Hall again, after reminiscing about his last gig on the now-dilapidated stage in 1963

KINKS star Ray Davies has described Hornsey Town Hall as his “ideal” and said he would love to play the venue once more.

Mr Davies, who lives in Muswell Hill area, was speaking on the BBC show Imagine as he wandered around the dilapidated Town Hall, which sits just off Crouch End Broadway.

He reminisced about playing the formerly prolific music venue on Valentine’s Day in 1963 as the Ray Davies Quartet, telling presented Alan Yentob: “We played here before we were The Kinks - it was close to where we lived and it’s really the origins of where I came from.

“I remember the stage and my family being in the audience somewhere.

“When I played here we were just starting out and people were dancing to big band music still.”

A year later the band rocketed to rock and roll stardom when they released You Really Got Me.

Wandering around the Town Hall, Mr Davies seemed to know little of the multi-million pound plans afoot to refurbish the Grade II* listed building and convert it into an arts hub after plans were given the go-ahead earlier this year.

Joking with Mr Yentob and pointing at flaking ceilings, Davies commented: “If you want my opinion I wouldn’t do too much with it - I would leave it as it is.

“I thought it was going to be a holding pen for refugees.”

However, he later added: “It’s decayed but there’s still something magnificent about it - there’s something in the walls that will go when it’s clean and shiny.

“It’s amazing - you don’t appreciate things until they’re gone.”

After walking around the former auditorium and twinkling on an abandoned piano which sits on its stage, he said: “I would love to play here - you have a vision of where you want to be and where you want to be presented and this place subconsciously has been my ideal since I first came here.”

The Kinks front man wandered around various Haringey locations throughout the documentary, telling Mr Yentob he still lived just a mile away from the Town Hall.