Kings Cross,
dense with angels and histories,
there are cities beneath your
pavements, cities behind your skies.
Let me see! [1]
I.
King's Cross is a district straddling the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, on either side of the Euston Road (a thoroughfare built in 1756, but originally called, rather unimaginatively, the New Road).
The district was named after a large but ugly monument to George IV which
stood from 1830 to 1845 where New Road, Gray's Inn Road, and Pentonville Road intersected - thus King's Cross - geddit?
It's not an area I know well or feel at home in, but it does have a fascinating history as both a red light district and gateway to the North (and Hogwarts), home as it is to King's Cross station, beneath which lies the body of the Celtic warrior queen Boadicea [2].
II.
Following an extensive programme of regeneration, King's Cross is today all hip and happening and popular with the usual suspects as well as the large student body based at Central St Martins college of art, in Granary Square; a public space which prides itself on being the canalside heart of King's Cross and boasts lots of bars, cafés, and restaurants, as well as a thousand choreographed fountains to delight those who like that sort of thing (often the same kind of people who like laser shows and fireworks).
I don't know what the Romans who settled the area would have made of it all, but, since they invented the idea of panem et circenses to distract and amuse the masses, they may well have approved [3].
This programme of urban renewal (and gentrification) followed many years of post-War (and post-industrial) decline. It was always a poor area, but had been a busy commercial district. By the 1980s, however, it was notorious for drug dealing and prostitution - although low rents and plenty of vacant buildings to squat also made it popular with artists and musicians; think Anthony Gormley and the Mutoid Waste Company [4] .
Now, it's home to the Google UK headquarters [5]. And the British Library, who relocated next to St. Pancras station in 1997. Oh, and The Guardian.
As for the old Gasworks, well, that's been demolished; although you can still view the iron skeleton of Gasholder 8, which has been transformed into an object of architectural and historic interest [6] - i.e., disempowered and robbed of its Victorian grandeur.
Notes
[1] In 2012, these lines from an unpublished long poem titled 'The Brill' written by Aiden Andrew Dun, were inscribed along one side of Granary Square, having originally been spray-painted on the walls of Battle Bridge just before it was demolished. Readers interested in knowing more can visit Dun's website by clicking here.
[2] The claim that queen Boadicea - or Boudica, as people now like to say - is buried under Platform 9 at King's Cross station is, alas, one with no evidence to support it. The legend originated because the area is believed by some to have been the site of her final battle against the Romans in 61 AD.
As for the station itself, I used to go there fairly often in the early-mid 1980s, travelling by train to Leeds. But I can't say I was particularly impressed; like Margaret Schlegel, the station with its great arches "shouldering between them an unlovely clock", had always suggested infinity and I'm something of an apeirophobe. I'm quoting, of course, from E. M. Forster's novel Howards End (1910), chapter 2.
[3] The phrase 'bread and circuses' originates from the writings of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal; see Satire X in Book IV of the Satires, lines 77-81. To read a translation by A. S. Kline (2001) published on poetryintranslation.com, click here.
[4] Anthony Gormley - now Sir Anthony Gormley - is a British sculptor who, I believe, still has a large, light-filled studio in the King's Cross area (designed in collaboration with the architect David Chipperfield in 2001-03).
In the late 1980s, the Mutoid Waste Company - an art collective founded by Joe Rush and Robin Cooke in collaboration with Alan P. Scott and Joshua Bowler - moved into Battlebridge Road
warehouse, where they built huge industrial sculptures out of scrap metal
and held raves; they were evicted by police in 1989.
[5] Or it soon will be at any rate: Google King's Cross is nearing completion and will form part of the so-called Knowledge Quarter in King's Cross Central. Providing over 861,000 square feet of office space for around 7,000 employees, it is the first building owned and designed by Google outside the US.
[6] Stroll along the canal towpath from Granary Square and you'll come to Gasholder Park, featuring the wrought-iron frame of Gasholder 8; fully restored and relocated from the opposite bank of the canal.
A Grade II listed structure, Gasholder 8 was originally built in the 1850s and held over a million cubic feet of gas. It was the largest and proudest of nine such giants that once dominated the skyline of King's Cross. Now, it encases 'a sculpted canopy and lush circular lawn' and makes one feel a little forlorn.
Musical bonus: 'King's Cross', by the Pet Shop Boys, from the album Actually (Parlophone Records, 1987), written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant. Click here to play on YouTube.
This post is for Nina O’Reilly, a PhD researcher at Central Saint Martins, University
of the Arts London. Her research "explores the changing fortunes of
youth/sub/club/queer cultures in the King's Cross area" and opens up a wider conversation "about
creative agency and access to the city", as well as the role of young people "as
active producers of space, particularly in central London".
In addition, her work examines how heritage is shaped in cities, and the
forms of destruction that are often unleashed in the name of regeneration whilst serving the interests of capital and real estate.
Her University of the Arts London profile page - from where I'm quoting - can be accessed by clicking here.
