Page 13 - June2013

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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
lucrative market of keeping the Kings Cross working
girls supplied with prophylactics! Don’t tell them!
From the canal to the old Granary building is Granary
Square the biggest of ten new public squares which has
already become a hit with half-term mums who bring
their children here to play in the dancing fountains
(at night they are lit in various colours, quite a sight).
The Granary Building itself is very much the heart of
the new development housing the brand new Central
Saint Martin’s School of Art as well as the Kings
Cross Visitor Centre and a really good interactive
model of the regeneration site. The Kings Cross Visitor
Centre is well stocked with marvellous freebies - maps,
postcards, well written and informative leaflets all paid
for by the developers. And who are they? Argent is the
name and they form part of the Kings Cross
Partnership, a conglomeration of hedge funds and
businesses which along with London & Continental
Railways and DHL (yes really - this is an old goods
yard remember) are the land owners.
Like all new London brown field developments
planning permission is only given in return for the
promise to provide affordable housing, usually in the
form of social housing managed and sometimes owned
by housing associations. Typically this will be 10-15%
of the housing stock. At Kings Cross this will be 44%
and in truth I don't know if this is purely a generous
and public spirited gesture by the developers, a tough
condition of planning set by Camden Council who are
building themselves a new town hall on the site or
maybe a pragmatic reaction to all that railway line that
someone has got to look at through their windows.
Some of those who are going to enjoy the view of
the railway lines will be students housed in a new
student village being built on the development.
A fascinating walk through and around the perimeter
of the enormous stock brick box that is the Granary
reveals the ghostly imprints of the industrial heritage
of the site as well as the more substantial forms of
the transit sheds, the massive West Handyside
Canopy built in the year of the Jack the Ripper
murders to protect perishable goods including fish
which was sold here on Sundays when Billingsgate
was closed. There’s also a surviving curiosity of the
early train age - a temporary platform for Kings
Cross at which Queen Victoria de-trained in 1852.
It is all quite fascinating, revealing, exciting and
extraordinary. Do come and see it for yourselves.
Turn over for a choice of itineraries focusing on the
Kings Cross regeneration site. You can come for a
fascinating and easy on the feet tour of the heart
of the developments as well as Kings Cross &
St Pancras stations with options of a cruise on the
Regents Canal, a Thames Cruise from Greenwich
to Westminster or a visit to the nearby Foundling
Museum. For groups who would like to dig deeper
into the industrial archaeology and heritage of the
site there’s a full day option which includes Hardy’s
tree at Old St Pancras church, the Skip Garden and a
tour of the new concert hall at Kings Place. On page
16 life long railways enthusiast and Blue Badge
Guide, Doug writes about the cycle of introduction
and change in London’s railway lands and describes
a specialist itinerary -
Changing Trains
.