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Sixty-seven acres of brown-field land, the former
Great Northern Goods Yard behind Kings Cross and
St Pancras railway stations is currently being
transformed into a whole new district for London.
At its heart is the largest new public square in
London since Trafalgar Square was laid out in the
1800s. The site is hemmed in by railways lines and
bisected by the Regents Canal. When completed
(in 2022!) this will be the capital’s newest and best
connected postcode (N1C) served by 6 underground
lines, the mainline railway services to the East
Anglia, the Midlands, the North, Scotland and via
Eurostar to the continent - including direct services
due to start in 2014 from St Pancras to Amsterdam
and Geneva.
Both St Pancras and Kings Cross stations have
undergone major makeovers and they are looking
great. From this autumn the original facade of Kings
Cross will be revealed in all its glory having been
covered up for years by an ugly lean-to sort of
extension that jutted out onto the Euston Road.
And as for the new concourse roof - blimey! It’s a
long way from the grubby old days when the run
down station was the epicentre of one of London’s
most notorious red light districts.
Today running from between the two stations into
the heart of the old goods yard is a new street -
The Kings Boulevard. It will be lined with high-end
fashion retailers housed in the ground floors of
office blocks, one of which will house the new HQ
of Margaret Hodge’s Public Accounts Committee’s
tax-avoiders-de-jour, (allegedly) Google. The truly
vast billion pound Google building will stretch along
the length of the new boulevard and is going to be
longer than The Shard is tall.
Temporarily gone from the skyline are the massive gas
silos that became a part of London clubbers legend -
if you hadn’t emerged bleary-eyed from Bagleys night
club housed in the old coal drops to witness the sun
rise behind the Kings Cross gasometers you just hadn’t
lived. Man. By popular demand, the gasometers will
return, brushed up and sparkling to house inside their
framework new apartment blocks over in the funky
new Camden Lock style development of individual
artsy boutiques in the old viaducts and coal drop
buildings.
The coal drops, built in the 1850s and 60s
to transfer coal from rail wagons to road carts without
the waste that came from smashing the coal into tiny
pieces, were designed by coal mine owner Samuel
Plimsoll who later became the sailor’s friend saving
many lives with his Plimsoll Line.
Nearby, curving beautifully along the line of the
Regents Canal is the Coal & Fish Building which once
housed all the clerks needed to tally up the comings
and goings of goods in the yards. This building is
going to house the HQ and flagship restaurant of an,
as yet top secret, celebrity chef. There are going to be
ever so many new restaurants here, there’s one already
open in the old petrol station that once cornered the
The Regeneration of London’s Kings Cross