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All Saints Street
Thornhill Wharf The street side with the name and function of the original occupiers set, appropriately, into cement.
Peabody Trust crisp, pale brick housing by Avanti Architects job architect Justin de Syllas.
Health Centre. With Tile Picture of 1900 in the reception ‘Playing Bowls in Copenhagen Fields in the reign of George III’ from the former Star and Garter pub. Conserved by the Jackfield Conservation Studio, 1996.
1891, Thorley's HQ
4-6 Mercantile House, (1891), was Thorley's head office. The mill buildings stood between it and the canal side ones seen previously.
Vehicle entrance, through bollarded archway and disused weighbridge
Cast iron parish boundary mark
Office - a lively red brick 1890s block with Baroquedoorway is also included as part of Regent’s Wharf.
Regent's Wharf is a large canal side complex of offices comprising fourteen buildings totaling 239,000 sq.ft. The architect's challenge was to reduce a viable scheme for refurbishing four warehouses, a 'new build facsimile of a listed building', and nine new buildings. Regent's is less pompous, more calm and assured than the practice's rampantly post-Hiemist work on another large office complex. At Regent's, Momson's fenestration and the three copper-clad protrusions possibly extend from the practice's work with Ralph Erskine on the Ark. Similar Scandinavian overtones are evident in the large areas of timber cladding conjoined with white painted steelwork within the internal courtyard.
Office – a narrow building reproducingthe form of a granary of c.1860.
Albert Wharf vehicle entrance in a small cul de sac via a bollard- protected archway, within which is a disused weighbridge.
Cast iron parish boundary post (1869).
Balfe Street,
Previously Albion Street. Runs north towards the canal from the end ofCaledonian Road. Displays a characteristic mid-c19 combinationof domestic and industrial building: attractive residential terrace
4-8 built c1890 for the Cooper family, sellers of leather footwear and shoe uppers. Barred windows protected the valuable leather.
5-33 are a superiorthree-storey terrace with both ground- and first-floor openingswithin round-headed arches; near the centre, a works entrancedated 1846 industrial premises, part of Albion Yard.
17/17aTerraced house c1847. . An archway, contemporary with the street 1846 leads to industrial premises. Note the hardwearing granite slabs to give traffic a smooth run. These, the oldest built in 1832 on a then 'green field' site, conveniently close to the canal, were erected by George Crane, washing blue and black lead manufacturer. Since c1915 they have housed a variety of small firms, such as engineers, motorcycle makers, picture framers, George Crane works washing blue and black lead. Manager’s or proprietor's house. Stephenson, Mager & Co (1877 Kelly's entry); Importers of black lead and sole proprietors of Geo. Crane's celebrated Mexican jet lead, blue mfrs, drug and spice grinders etc. 1910 taken over by Hargreaves Bros & Co. Ocean Blue works, etc. Listed Grade II.
1890 Cooper's sellers of leather footwear
Terrace Grade 2 listed terrace formerly called Mexican Terrace, after George Crane's "celebrated Mexican jet lead”.
Barnsbury
Barnsbury takes its name from a medieval manor belonging to theCanons of St Paul's, whose moated grange lay on the site of BarnsburySquare. The estate was split up in 1822, and the streets, squares, and crescents were nearly all laid out from 1821 to the 1840s on small parcels of land; as a result there are many delightful variations in planning and style. It is a good place to study the shift of taste from terrace to villa. Despite some demolition since 1945 the area survives remarkably complete, enhanced by some sensitive restoration and new building. The Pioneering gentrification locality. In 1830s Baume, a Frenchman, set up Barnsbury Park Co-operative Community with a farm and radical shoemakers and so on. Said that the building of the railways encouraged the more prosperous residents to move.
Barnsbury Estate
Won a Canal Way Project prize
Battlebridge Road
Features in films 'Green Street’.
Battlebridge– what does the name mean? Cliffe was a Protestant cobbler and so Fleet stream also called ‘Cobblers Brook'. A miller in the time of Edward IV had his ears cut off for talking against the Duke of Somerset? Said also to be the place where Boadicea is said to have attacked the Romans in AD61 and killed everyone. Battlebridge then became the name of the King's Cross area. Seems to mean ‘Bridge of a battle' - but more likely it is called after boats on the Fleet. What battles were there? There was an alleged battle of King Alfred and the Danes. It s actually a corruption of Broad Ford Bridge the Bridge was a brick arch over the Fleet. It is the dustbin area where all the rubbish of London brick and tile makers was dumped. The ford was a crossing on the River Fleet, which flowed by King's Cross Station to the west. Battlebridge and the south end of Caledonian Road Battlebridge, once a hamlet by a bridge over the Fleet River, gave its name to the basin of the Regent's Canal, built east of York Road, then Maiden Lane, in 1820. The area developed with a mixture of canal- side industry and small streets of terraced houses opening off the Caledonian Road. Another settlement grew up from 1793 further around Maiden Lane. By 1830 this had become an enclave of noxious industries, and the opening of King’s Cross Station in 1852 and the development of the vast railway lands intensified the industrial character of the area and goods yard. Regeneration of these declining industrial areas was encouraged from the 1980s.
Culross buildings. Built by Great Northern Railway for employees. Named after a Chairman. Demolished? Built in 1891-2 they were a rare survival of the tenement style of flats applied to railway housing.
Mission Hall to railway workers
Basement for railway mess rooms, etc.
Tracks of Great Northern Railway in Imperial Gas Co. works approach road, Great Northern Railway built the bridge
Gas company flats. 1936, behind you, were a demonstration of steel-framed building by the British Steelwork Association.
Bemerton Street
Caithness House
Dunoon House
Orkney House
Perth House
Selkirk House
Tayport Close
Bingfield Street
Independent
St.Michael’s. Gone. 1863-4 by Roumieudemolished 1986
Houses on the site of St Michael. Houses in Surrey cottage style1984-6. Eric Lyons
Caledonian Road School
Boadicea Street
Blessed Sacrament School
Called because the battle of Battlebridge was supposed to have been between her and the Romans.
Boxworth Grove
Brill Street
Demolished for St.Pancras Station, Hamlet called the Brill with a pub, Brill House
Mr. Weston chimney pot maker
Brydon Walk
Caledonia Street
An extension of the laundry, in typical Edwardian style. Note the date, 1906, and the monogram, repeated in the fragment of railings remaining. An arch at the far end has granite posts both sides to protect it from damage.
Buildings which extend behind 32 York Way; built in 1866 as part of Albion Works, a copper and brass foundry. The easternmost three storey building features a small wall crane. On the far end of the same wall is a truncated chimney, once 80ft high, for a coal-fired boiler and steam engine. Also some later buildings.
Caledonian Road
Thelong, straight Caledonian RoadPrivately built to link Battle Bridge with Holloway Road in 1826. Originally called Chalk Road and went across the fields alongside the Crow Inn. It skirted the Thornhill estate and went over canal by Thornhill Bridge. It took its name from one of its firstbuildings, the Royal Caledonian Asylum. Features in films 'Naked’.
2-4 1890s decorated
5 Houseman's Bookshop
7-9 in the Arts and Crafts style; erected in 1885 as offices for the then well - known firm of varnish and colour makers, Wilkinson, Heywood & Clark Pharmaceuticals, 1876. An exception. Befronted in Queen Anne style, with cut brick, terracotta, and tile- hanging with Broseley tiles, by Romaine-Walker & Tanner, 1885. Former varnish factory of ‘fireproof ' buildings around a yard behind were a warehouse, the main factory being in West Drayton. Other firms have used the site since c1910
2-8 Alpha Place became Omega,
7 Listed Grade II. Warehouse c 1815. Used as storage
9 Turkish baths and saloon
10-24 terrace of shops, 1850s
17 Mexican Terrace,
19 Queen's Arms 1850s
54-68 Commercial Place
61-97 Lansdowne Terrace, The Talbot
75-87 plain
77 plaques 1845,1855 to mark the boundary with Clerkenwell parish.
80 former Star and Garter pub
106-136 good stretch of unspoiltterraces
125 Swan Tavern
127-191 Edward Terrace
138-146 the Pub.
148 Thornhill Pub 1880s with good lettering on glazed tiles.
152-154 Bridge Wharf. Incorporates both early c19 houses, and runs along thecanal. A subtle design by Chassay Wright Architects, 1988, withflats above a podium for light industry. Mews-like entrances to thestreet; well-organized facade to the canal.
All Saints, 1838. A box - quite awful, but perhaps cheap, it was £4,412.14.8d. To build
Great Northern Hospital – here until the 1888s
Baths, 1892, on hospital site, rebuilt in 1980. First public baths in Islington.
Burns House
Crow Inn
Diddington Place
Hillmarton villa
Irvine House
Scott House
Shadbolt Roman Cement works, 1859. In the 1870s Percy George Shadbolt joined the firm and went to Suffolk
Sophia Close
St Mary's Library
St.Matthais gone
Stephenson Terrace
Stephenson, Mager & Co. 1832-1877, Black lead and blue makers
Stock Orchard Crescent
Sturmer Way
Wesleyan Chapel was demolished in 1980.
Calshot Street
Neighbourhood Centres, Borough Council offices. Islington’s four local centres to house decentralized day-to-day services planned in 1982, following the lead of Walsall. Thirteen built or converted from existing buildings Chris Purslow, Borough Architect. Look cheap but approachable with red brick, pantiled roofs, and Mackintosh-style gridded windows. Part-polygonal, mostly open-plan offices, with central clerestory-lit gallery useful for discreet surveillance and under it, tiny interview rooms, and a waiting area that opens into a garden segment.
8 storey blocks of flats by Finsbury Borough
Busaco Estate and four storey block
22 Grimaldi
Hales Prior
Henley Prior
Campbell Walk
Canal
Battlebridge Basin or Horsfall Basin - Horsfall was the landowner. 1990s the basin was surrounded by some imaginatively converted warehouses, interspersed with new housing. A mixture of taller warehouses of the early c20 and low- key late c20 housing. The natural fall of the land means that part of the basin (1819 480ft by 155ft) is above street level, made up, it is said. By spoil from Islington Tunnel. Residential narrow boats, formerly used commercially, are often moored here. The basin was not completely surrounded by buildings; some of the now - vacant land was timber yards.
Charles Bartlett & Co., export packers, put their own name on chimney stack adjacent to Battlebridge Basin. Some early writing can be seen - 'Bartlett premises'. Premises occupied since about 1960 by Charles Bartlett. This firm of packing case manufacturers expanded over the years to occupy some adjacent properties.
Albert Wharf. In The north - east corner of Battlebridge basin. Rounded -corner single storey building partly constructed from various materials of different shapes and sizes probably spare from the stone merchants and contractors who occupied the site. This was Cooper & Sewell (c1847-1880) and J. Mowlem & Co. (c1880-1922). The latter remain major contractors. A two storey brick building, with a square chimney, backs onto the canal. Dating from about 1870, it at one time included stabling.
Regent's Wharf. Boldly reconstructed 19th grain milling complex and new offices. 1991. Older cattle food mill and grain silo opened by with glazed areas. Picturesquely grouped around a yardbetween the street and the canal. By Rock Townsend, 1991. Lessdomineering and more elegant than their contemporary work atthe Angel. The new build consists of simplerectangular yellow brick blocks with attics and curious blind or pan-blind oriels of copper sheeting. The older cattle-food mill c-1890 have been partially opened up by glazed areas. An undulating timber-clad staircase wall and a block in stripedred and yellow brick provide additional texture within the yard;
The Bridge into gas works with a siding stood where the canal narrows for stop gates. The stop gates were installed in Second World War. They were closed if the canal was breached to save the railway lines and they closed when sirens went.
From Wharf Road to Sturt's Lock is in Islington — as can be seen from the litter bins — and looking at Hackney across the water.
Great Northern Railway tunnels, underneath 1852, 1874-8 and 1889-92
Canal widens before Maiden Lane Bridge for barges moored at flour mills
Blockhouse At the steps by Maiden Lane bridge. Containing cooling plant for the high voltage power cables under the towpath.
Concrete bridge private bridge used by National Carriers.
Curve round Great Northern Railway goods yard wall
Thorley. The two tall late 19th century buildings at the water's edge at Battlebridge Basin were a warehouse and a granary for Thorley's cattle food and cake mill. Joseph Thorley, who started making his product in Hull in 1848, moved here c1860. The firm, taken over by J. Bibby and Son Ltd. in 1952, left the site in 1957. The granary contained eight tall silos, hence the lack of windows between ground and top floors and the wall-ties to give the building strength. The narrow towers of loading doors each had 'cathead' hoists. 'Danger' notice on the wall and 'Thorley's food for cattle'.
W.J.Plaistow & Co. Jam making buildings of. Notice 'jams and marmalades'. It was once J. Dickenson's paper warehouses several adjoining factory and warehouse buildings. These were used from the late 19th century until 1926. Around the basin.
Pembroke Wharf set back to let boats pass. Grain merchant’s building with and warehousing. The small three storey building was stables with fodder and grain stores above
Thornhill Wharf. The buildings, dating from 1855, were the premises of Coles, Shadbolt and Co., Portland Cement manufacturers, later owned by the British Portland Cement Co.
Warehouse on Battlebridge Basin. 1926. five storey warehouse which retains its goods doors and remnants of 'cathead" hoists at the top. It provided additional accommodation for Thorley's
Goods way moorings.
Horse ramp in the tow path
Islington tunnel. (built 1815-18) It is 960 yards long and every ten metres is marked inside the tunnel. cut through blue London clay It measures 60' below summit, 17' wide; 4' deep; 9'9" above water. James Morgan designed it 1812-1820. It was opened in 1820 by Lord Macclesfield in the City Barge. There is no towpath, and all boats were 'legged' although by teams of men employed by the Canal Company. In 1826 a steam tug was introduced which hauled itself along a chain laid through the tunnel; similar tugs continued in use until the 1930s. Horses were led over the top to rejoin their boats There is a slope alongside the tunnel for the horse to go up through Pentonville Hill. The New River crossed it in a wooden trough while it was being built. The character changes and the west portal is at risk and also the east portal is at risk
Litter bins from Islington, nice
St. Pancras lock, twin chamber (one out of use). One of 13 on the canal which drops 100ft in 8 miles. The canal was often short of water and the two chambers acted as mutual side-ponds.
Lock keepers cottage – no lock keeper, two before 2WW. Brick building, l880, was also a pumping station by which water was pumped back up the canal.
Maiden Lane pumping station - yellow building with steps. CEGB cooling station containing cooling plant for the high voltage power cables under the towpath
Moorings for London Narrow Boat Assoc. and 'Taporley' Camden Youth service boat
Natural fall of land made up with spoil
New Red brick building on right of canal has replaced the Westinghouse Brake Co offices demolished in 1970s. Stands on the corner of Horsfall Basin
Past Barnsbury Estate horse ramp
Piccadilly line under the canal in 1903
Porters warehouses
Pumping station
Sickert painting of the gardens in Noel Road
Somers Bridge, pad stone remains. The bridge provided access to goods yard, its successor is the concrete bridge
Stables from canal curving brick wall with windows at ground floor level. Railway stables
Bridge wrought iron railway bridge over the canal, which determined the MR's approach to St. Pancras.
Maiden Lane Bridge – see York Way
Stop gates for 2nd World War. Just past Maiden LaneBridge is the second pair of stop gates closed when the air raid sirens sounded inSecond World War to avoid flooding of the railway tunnels. From the water's edge stop-gates can be seen in the canal. Could be closed to prevent flooding of Gasworks Tunnels in event of a breach.
Thornhill Bridge. Thornhill local landowner. Public park giving access to Caledonian road
Under the bridge see how the road has been widened. Black all where the basin in the gas works entrance was
Concrete bridge, 1920s
Shallow brick arch high in the wall indicates the entrance to the Granary Basin, 1851. Blocked wide arch for second canal arm to go into the goods yard. Tow path rises over it as an entrance to basin.
Warehouse with preservation order on it
Small windows in the canal side wall ventilate stables in the Goods Yard.
Carnegie Street
Adrian House
Aldrick House
Amory House
Blackmore House
Crispe House
Ewen House
Jocelin House
Mavor House
Ritson House
Thurston House
Charlotte Terrace, Called after Thornhill child. In the early 1850's Thomas Ottewill was a cabinet maker at 23 and 24. By 1860 he employed over 20 men and were photographic equipment manufacturers. They appear, to have ceased trading by 1867.
Berners House
Copenhagen House
Corbet House
Fisher House
Kenrick House
Messiter House
Molton House
Payne House
Redmond House
Samford House
Thorpe House
Venn House
Vittoria House
Molton House
Roding House
Chalbury Walk
Chenies Place
Civil war earthworks 1642 at St Pancras which were interpreted by Stukeley as a Roman Camp. One of these, was still visible in 1826 and possibly coinciding with the Great Slip Field was on the site bounded by Pancras Road, Chenies Place and Purchese Street
Cheney Road
Bombed. Features in films 'The Ladykillers’, ‘Shirley Valentine’,’Chaplin’, The Missionary’,’Nuns on the Run’, 'Still Crazy’, ‘Backbeat’, 'Hard Men’.
Railway Hotel Curve. Underneath the road is the down line of the Great Northern Railway line, only used for stock turnaround.Also the Down line from the Metropolitan line to Moorgate.
Horse Wharf. Later used as Motorail terminal.
Clarence Passage
Features in films 'Hard Men’.
Collier Street
The site of White Conduit House and its gardens covered by slums and dreary streets, some of which mercifully removed by bombs. Large bombed sites have been cleared of their debris
Calshot House. Added to the Tecton estate in 1952.
Foliot House
Gordon House
Kendal House
Paveley House
Redington House
Tornay House
Wynford House. Added to the Tecton Estate in 1952
Priory Green Estate. Part of Finsbury's grand post-war housing programme. The largest of Tecton's Finsburyestates, completed by Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin, 1947-57 but compromised by cost-cutting. Four blocks storeys, and six eight-storey blocks, formally arranged in two facing groups. The circular building at the corner was designed as a laundry, with district boiler housebeneath, the only amenity that survived the drastic cuts. There are accessgalleries instead of the intended stairs and lifts, also for economy. The private balcony sides are livelier, including lower blocks with typicalTecton chequer patterning. The tall blocks had open cornerentrances, deliberately prominent, but now glazed in; theirentrance halls originally had large murals by Feliks Topolski. 2008 done up by Peabody.
Pentonville Charity School
Grendon House
Manneby Prior
Tornay House
Copenhagen Street
Copenhagen House in Copenhagen Fields. Hide out for Polish ambassador. Good view. Gordon rioters
Great Northern Railway Tunnel, 1846-50 by Sir William Cubitt, cuts diagonally through the borough with a tunnel under Copenhagen Fields. A diversionary route of 1872-4 passes beneath Highbury Hill to join the North London Railway.
Sunya floor cloth factory at the Back of Copenhagen House
Ebonite tower had been built for Taylor’s, water meter manufacturers. 1878. In 1870 they built a tower to hold three different water tanks at different heights with a flue up through the centre. Meters were tested by water pressure at different heights. The water was re-used. Two construction companies were bankrupted in the process of laying the foundations. The German air force used it as a landmark in the war. The Tower was wrapped in fleece to stop it freezing. Demolished 1983
1-23 Denmark Terrace, South Islington and British schools 1841 used as cardboard box manufactures
Copenhagen Cinema, now council housing
61-129 Caroline Place
78-80 Alma Grove
112-113 Clyde Terrace
Church of the Blessed Sacrament. 1916. Red brick by Robert L. Ct red brick in a domestic-looking Free Style with large Romanesque doorways. Additions include the sanctuary by T. G. Birchall 1957-9, and a presbytery with monopitch roofs.
109
Edward Place
George's Terrace
Lion Court
Cowdenbeath Street
Crinan Street
Corner with York Way, Connolly tyre business extension
Bottling stores and two similar warehouses and on the right. Refurbished in 1986 as workshops, were erected at the turn of the century. The northernmost, dated 1903, was built for Robert Porter & Co. Ltd. bottled beer merchants, who used both until the early 1980s.
'Waterside Inn, beyond, has a terrace alongside Battlebridge Basin. Terrace for watching birds
Rear entrance to 68 York Way
Brick wall with two tiers of small windows, a remnant of stables for 60 horses. These were owned by Young Bros., bulk suppliers of hay and straw to firms for their cartage horses/stables. This business closed c1920.
Lacre MotorsLondon depot large doored. building. name from original Long Acre site. here from 1911 until the late 1930s. Their car and lorry production was in Hertfordshire. The corner building has a wall-mounted crane, fabricated from flat iron bars. to take goods to the first floor workshops. It became ecology centre offices in 1986.
4 Porters South. The first, influential conversion in this area, of Porter's bottling works of 1906 onwards,which stretches all the way down the side of Battlebridge basin. The two blocks were recast in 1988 by Fitch Benoy for their architecture and design company, and later sold to Macmillan Publishing. The four-storey brick shells were retained; little was altered externally, and a tall, refined atrium was slottedinto the wedge-shaped area in between the two blocks, with sleekframeless glazing towards the basin. The atrium is enlivened by the bold red curve of a stair-tower, and overlooked by meeting roomsat different levels. The open-plan block was given new floorlevels, an extra top floor, and lit by a light-well cut through the'centre. This and the atrium are spanned by slender steel bridges that recall Ron Herron's contemporary infilling at the Imagination building in Store Street. These are adjacent warehouse conversions overlooking Battlebridge Basin, within Regent's canal, occupied by rival design practices. Both firms have retained the robust character of the original buildings, but it is Fitch who have made the most dramatic internal interventions. They introduce an entirely new geometry cutting across internal masonry walls to dramatically create top-lit visual links between entrance lobby and canal basin at the rear. A space at the basin side is treated as a concourse focusing shared activities - dining, a conference rooms, etc. Similar interventions create links between floors, producing a spatial complexity. Such complexity has been avoided by DEGW, who employ a more simple space - a planner's rationale to their conversion. Whereas Fitch fracture the deep space of the building with new openings, DEGW have accepted the depth and use it to lend a calm spacious quality to their offices. Highlights are also more discreet and less rhetorical.
8 Porters North. More pragmatically fitted their well-planned offices into the existing fabric c. 1989.It consists of live-work studios arranged around access yards next to the canal, and two Grade II listed Georgian buildings refurbished as offices. The complex is a welcome addition to the area.
Culross Buildings. Features in films 'The Missionary’ as Mission for Fallen Women, O Lucky Man’, ’Nuns on the Run’, ‘Shooters’.
Cumming Street,
Penton development. Coade stone decorated houses. A speculation by Cuming, a clock maker. This was Affleck Street, built in 1884 by A.Attneve - was his name Affleck. The site of White Conduit House and its gardens covered by slums and dreary streets, some of which mercifully removed by bombs. Large bombed sites have been cleared of their debris
8 storey blocks of flats by Finsbury Borough, Busaco Estate, Bombed
Female Penitentiary
8
Cynthia Street
Called after Thornhill child
Metropolitan Water board factory for meter repairs
Delhi Street,
'Dreadful slum'. One wonders how India and her great generals came to be commemorated by such squalid surroundings. This is London in its most forbidding aspect, for whereas the East End is picturesque and varied, the King's Cross district of North London is without any open spaces or redeeming features
Estate by Eric Lyons Cunningham Metcalfe1973-8, humanely laid out with a high proportion of privategardens.
Vibart Walk
Wheeler Gardens
Donegal Street
The site of White Conduit House and its gardens covered by slums and dreary streets, some of which mercifully removed by bombs. Large bombed sites have been cleared of their debris
Penton House
Prospect House
Rodney House
Elizabeth Garratt Anderson School. Plaque to Bronterre O'Brien
Edward Square,
Called after Thornhill child
Regents long gone but still a street sign there dated from 1860
Little Prince of Wales
W.H.Smith garages
Garden in the centre run by the vestry from 1888, was saved for games purposes but derelict in the 1990s.
Everilda Street,
Called after Thornhill child
St.Thomas early decorated church. Comical design by Arthur Bailey, it was not in fact ever built
Parish Schools
Figs Mead Gate
Fife Terrace
At the end. A part of an early 19th century terrace remains.
Gifford Street
Gifford County Secondary School
Keskidee Arts Centre in old Mission Hall
William of York School. 1876. Extended c. 1890 with superimposed halls; wing added 1915-16. LSB
Goods Way
Under Regents Canal. Four feet above the bank is the road tunnel painted in two places 35' apart. Probably for maintenance engineers. Great Northern Railway went under canal in 1852 and work done in a week while the canal was closed.
Boundary between St.Mary Islington and St.Pancras the Martyr markers in stone on the station wall. A Cast iron shield on the wall. Bollards with St.Pancras initials
Cobbled roadway was a bridge across the railway
Road for cabs to reach the arrival platform 1852
Plate Girder Bridge carrying lines out of St.Pancras
Wall of Somerstown Goods Station, 1883.
The Hats, 1936, were a demonstration of steel-framed building by the British Steelwork Association.
St.Pancras water point. Tank in Gothic arcaded brickwork. 1868. for the replenishment of engine boilers. Ornate red brick building on the railway
St.Pancras Gas Works of the Imperial Gas Co. 1822-1964. In 1869 it was the largest gas works in London. Holders built 1861, 1864, 1867 and 1883. Railway works in front and a Temperance Hall, 1870, by the Great Northern Railway alongside. Taken over by the Gas Light and Coke Co in 1876. In 1904 they made 1,700m cu ft. - 1875 had been 1,400, and 1862 1,000 annual daily capacity. Gas first made in 1824. This was the first works of the Imperial Company but by 1904 the only modern equipment used was the coal unloading cranes. Still used the original exhauster treble bell type, and hand stoked retorts in six retort houses. A site of 11 acres with five gasholders. The holders were all small because of the small amount of area of land available. Bow Museum had the plates from the gasholders saying 'erected 1861 telescoped 1880' and 'erected 1864 telescoped 1886'. There was a coal delivery viaduct over the canal. On the 'other' side of the canal, the viaduct was supported on some very fancy ironwork brackets with a little cage on the top. Gasholders demolished 2001. St. Pancras. 1824 "A fine example of gas making practice", opened by Sir William Congreve. On the Regents Canal, with an inlet giving coal handling facilities. Until 1869 the largest works in London. Closed for gas making in 1907. This is a famous site, still in British Gas use with listed holders (seen from the trains out of St Pancras). These holders were built on a later extension to the main site after 1860.
Gas works railway tunnel underneath
Grimaldi Park
Grimaldi Park House. Successor to St.James Church, built in 1787 and altered in 1920. Rebuild by Allies and Morrison, an odd building and is a product of the Church Commissioners' and local planners' insistence that any new building should respect the memory of the church which was demolished in 1981. It is now a corporate furniture showroom and offices.
Churchyard. Railed tomb of Joseph Grimaldi, d. 1837, the famous clown.
Half Moon Crescent
Vittoria Primary School. Experimental design by ILEA. With reference to the Plowden Report for a more domestic approach.
Havelock Street
'Dreadful slum’. One wonders how India and her great generals came to be commemorated by such squalid surroundings. This is London in its most forbidding aspect, for whereas the East End is picturesque and varied, the King's Cross district of North London is without any open spaces or redeeming features
Hemingford Road
Name of Thornhill's wife. Name Hemmingford Grey. Built during the 1830s and 1840s. Axial Road parallel with the meandering Thornhill Road. Built up in parcels and in distinctly contrasting styles, first rated in 1848 and 1849. Linked villas ofthe 1840s. Several pairs have pediments, thin and stuccoed, or more Italianate with bracketed windows;some have hipped roofs.
Huntingdon Arms. Eccentric coupled pilasters. Linked into arches, witha taste of Milner Square
Bethesda villas, named after the lessee of the Angel Inn 1845 more like Kensington than Islington,
1-39 Hemingford Terrace West
2-102 Hemingford Terrace
151-152 Hemingford Villas
167 for bow windows
43-91 Hemingford Cottages
95-145 Thornhill Terrace
147-165 Hemingford Villas West
149 Sisters of Loreto
St Thomas's, gone
Hemingford Arms
154-8 & 167-183 Hemingford Place
Keystone Crescent
Built across the parish boundary. c. 1845 a minute late example of Neoclassicalplanning. Two-storey and basement houses on both sides. Near the scruffy end of Caledonian Road
Killick Street
Stuart Mill House. Utilitarian flats 1951. Offices dressed in the postmodern garb of the 1990s, with bowed fronts and jutting eaveutilitarian indeed; sixstorey flats by Joseph Emberton, 1951. Long modernist concretebalconies; none of Tecton's refinement.
Bonington House
Peabody flats to rent
King's Cross
Under it in the 1870s found a mammoth with flint axes inside
King's Cross Passenger Station. 1852 Frontage designed by Lewis Cubitt and much praised for its fitness for purpose in comparison with St Pancras station. Not much good really - More like the entrance to a gaol. Designed on the basis of the Moscow Riding School. The London terminus of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), which served the eastern side of the country. Main terminus of the Eastern Region BR. Buses to other London termini. For 60 years Midland railway trains used the line into King's Cross. The tower (120 ft high) contains a clock, which adorned the Crystal Palace during the 1851 exhibition. Lewis Cubitt boasted that a good station could be built at King's Cross for less than the cost of the ornamental arch, or more correctly 'propylaeum', which until recently dominated the entrance to Euston Station. Cubitt constructed two spans, originally with wooden beams, each 105 feet wide. It has been suggested that he based his designs broadly on the Tsar's Riding Stables, then just completed in Moscow. Cubitt separated the spans by a clock tower 112 feet high. Completing the ensemble are the offices to the left of the facade, and the cab drive to the right. Also a Great Western Railway line. 1869 timber roof replaced 1869 and 1887. 1882 Crompton supplying more than one light from one generator, 12 arc lamps in 2 lines of 6 30 ft above the platform. Dene Bar. The tower (120 ft high) contains a clock which adorned the Crystal Palace during the 1851 exhibition. Lewis Cubitt boasted that a good station could be built at King's Cross for less than the cost of the ornamental arch, or more correctly 'propylaeum', which until recently dominated the entrance to Euston Station. Cubitt constructed two spans, originally with wooden beams, each 105 feet wide. It has been suggested that he based his designs broadly on the Tsar's Riding Stables, then just completed in Moscow. Cubitt separated the spans by a clock tower 112 feet high. Completing the ensemble are the offices to the left of the facade, and the cab drive to the right. Features in films 'The Ladykillers’, ’Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’, ‘Hoffman’, ‘Empire State’, ‘X, Y and Zee’, ‘Career Girls’, ‘Born Romantic’, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’, ’A Cry from the Streets’.
Kings Cross and St.Pancras Underground Station. 10th January 1863 Between Euston Square and Farringdon Street on the Metropolitan, Circle and Hammersmith and City Lines. Between Euston and Angel on the Northern Line. Between Russell Square and Caledonian Road on the Piccadilly Line. Between Euston and Highbury and Islington on the Victoria Line. Metropolitan Railway opened the original station and was joined in 1906 by the Great Northern (Piccadilly Line) and in 1907 by the City and South London Railway (Northern). The Northern Line Station was designed by Leslie Green and was sited near the forecourt of the main line station. Electric lights all through and electric lifts from the start. In 1927 the Name was changed to ‘Kings Cross for St.Pancras’ and in 1939 a new circular ticket hall was opened under the main line forecourt. The old Metropolitan Line bay platforms were made into wider passenger concourse in 1963 and the Green building was demolished. In 1969 the Victoria Line was added. One lift entrance portal survives from the Green building. Features in films 'High Hopes’.
Suburban Station 1875 enlarged in 1895 and 1924
Great Northern Hotel. Curved yellow stock building 1852-54, was built on the line of the old Pancras Road. In 1860, the area in front the hotel was then laid out as a formal garden. The hotel side of King's Cross was originally the main entrance. Not in any way architecturally outstanding, is entirely separate and in no way disfigures the eminently functional simplicity of the frontage, years ahead of its time when the station opened in October 1852
Goods Station Site
The former Great Northern Goods Yard site, roughly rectangular in shape and bounded in the west by the Regent's Canal and the Midland main line tracks, in the east by York Way, in the south once again by the Regent's Canal and in the north by the embankment of the North London line. The Goods Yard area has been reduced slightly from its original size by the effect of the new CTRL tracks that emerge from tunnels at the north-east corner of the site, cross the East Coast Main Line (ECML) on a viaduct, and curve round an embankment to terminate in the extended St Pancras International station. Two new tracks that will form part of the extended Thames- link network also tunnel under the yard to join the ECML. The total area of the Goods Yard area comprises 64.5 acres with total plot coverage of about 58 acres. The bulk of the total site is within the London Borough of Camden but York Way forms the boundary with the Borough of Islington and so the small area in the north-east corner, known as the Islington Triangle, comes within Islington. The Great Northern yard at Kings Cross was probably the largest of its kind when it opened in 1850 and it included a temporary passenger station. The architect responsible for the buildings on the site was Lewis Cubitt, nephew of William Cubitt the consulting engineer to the Great Northern. Into the yard came coal from Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and even, challenging the traditional coastal collier trade, from the North-East to supply London's burgeoning demand for domestic fuel and industrial energy. Fish from Hull and Grimsby, potatoes and cereals from Lincolnshire and the Vale of York and a host of other produce and commodities flowed down the East Coast line into Kings Cross. Further north were engine and carriage servicing and repair sheds and an expanse of sidings for various traffics and purposes, all now long gone. Constant change to the layout of the site and its buildings took place over the years as traffic grew and changed in nature and the history of the yard needs a book of its own to do it justice.
King's Cross Goods Station. Laid out in 1853 with the intention of GLC cattle docks on the up side. Coal trains 1851 with direct sales to the public. Then stopped. The largest goods station in the nineteenth century. All built in one period with maturity of planning by Lewis Cubitt. A revolutionary scale of interchange. (SNR), 1851-2 Site of Hydraulic Pumping Station
Main Goods Office. Terminus for E/NE England and Scotland. Unloaded in covered goods depot behind the station. 580 ft x 350 ft walls 25 ft high in one storey. Arcades typical of Cubitt
Roof of train assembly shed. Offices on w. side carry unique iron trussed roof. Part of 1850 roof put present place in 1890. Rafters are wrought iron bars sandwiching timber. Development can be traced through other work by Cubitt
Granary. Great Northern Railway. An impressive stock brick granary by Lewis Cubitt in 1851. Two channels beneath it communicating with a basin. View of goods shed. Tallest is 1851 granary. Station House. The central portion with openings for sack hoists. Built for the storage and transhipment of grain brought by rail from the Midlands and Lincolnshire to the now infilled canal basin in front. Arms of the canal projected into the body of the Granary goods sheds. Most notable of Lewis Cubitt's original buildings. Six-storey warehouse.
Granite sett roadways
Regeneration House that housed the main Goods Yard offices, 3-storey stock brick office building, 1851.
Midland Goods shed. Cast iron arcades. Before St. Pancras was built, the Midland Railway uneasily shared facilities with the Great Northern Railway, and this building became a goods shed when the Midland Railway moved out., as the temporary passenger station with its two 'Handy- side' canopies covering adjacent roads,
Hydraulic accumulator in the centre of site west of the granary building. 1979 two capstones left; tower
Basins. Two basins at the southern end of the yard enabled coal, stone and other goods to be transhipped direct to the Regent's Canal. Lines across the canal were later added to supply the Imperial Gas Company's retort house and coal drops on Cambridge Street
Canal basin on the corner, fire in 1983
Fish offices. Curving block 1852.
Coal drops – long covered viaducts with impressive row of offices
Dock
Eastern coal drops. Converted to Bagley's Bottling Warehouse. Bottles brought from Castleford or Pontefract by Great Northern Railway. Used as a coal drop (cast iron columns, bricked roundels) to the original structure now fire-damaged visible through the fence. The coal drops were covered. Full trains were worked on one of 4 lines into the top level. Coal was emptied into hoppers in the middle level and bagged and carted away from the bottom
Goods shed.Great Northern Railwaygoods sheds. One for arrivals, one departures, enclosing a marshalling area between, which was later roofed.
Goods office. 1856. On each side of the granary are concealed two 580' long brick walled, blank arched
Locomotive supers office
Long shed concrete depot
Midland Goods shed
Office building behind goods office
Plimsoll viaduct
Rogers carton warehouse
Shunters' huts
Steel road viaducts
Transit sheds flanking the granary
Two brick shafts
Viaduct
Wagon turntable
Water softening plant
Western goods station. 1897-9, built on the site of the Western Dock, 1851, for coal and stone, the entrance to which is crossed by an iron bridge. A surviving later addition quite different in construction and detail to the earlier buildings
Western coal drops, 1858, converted to a goods shed, 1897
King’s Cross itself was a statue of George IV – used for exhibitions. Erected 1830-36. The statue survived until 1842 and the base which had functioned as a beer-shop and police station, until c1845
Rowton house. One at Kings Cross, opened 1896, 678 beds; approximately in. 1906 additional land and further 266 beds.
Lavina Grove
Peabody flats for sale
Matilda Street
Thornhill's wife's middle name. Was Richmond Street
3 home of Williams, who built Thornhill Square
Maygood Street
Half Moon Crescent Housing Co-operative.
Maygood House
Muriel Street,
Called after Thornhill child
Preedy House
New Wharf Road
Along the side of Battlebridge basin has a mixture of newbuild and convened warehouses.
12/13 London Canal museum. Formerly an icewarehouse, 1862, of Carlo Gatti, popularizer of ice cream. There are two 60' deep Ice Wells of 1870 for the storage of Norwegian block ice which it was until the 1920s. The museum shows the story of London's waterways from the days when they provided important routes for trade.
12/13 Gatti a three storey building (c1870) with a central arch was occupied by Carlo Gatti (subsequently United Carlo Gatti Stevenson and Slater Ltd.), ice merchant, until the late 1920s. Gatti stored ice here in several canal side wells, 60ft deep; '/4 million tons per year was imported from Norway, being transhipped at Regent's Canal Dock, Limehouse.
Ozonal Laboratories 1930 next door, manufactured disinfectants, germicides, detergents, insecticides and telephone sterilising equipment. They left in the early 1980s.
5 Gatti’s Wharfa conversion
10 Marina One. 1996. Faced with pale yellow brick,with elegant curved end to the water; by Munkenbeck & Marshall,
14 Marina Two similar to Marina One, by the same firm, 1998.
20 1940s factory concretewith long lines ofwindows
Ice Wharf. Converted 1920s factory and new-buildflats and offices
Pavilion. New build 1994-7 byChassay Wright Architects.
Northdown Street
41-47 19th terrace the surprise of a complete early c19terrace with grand Ionicpilastered and pedimented centrepiece and doorways with Doriccolumns.
Pollard House. Model dwellings for the East End Dwellings Company 1895 red and yellow brick,
Omega Place