Coal Porter
“Times have changed, And we've often rewound the clock …. Anything goes”
[Cole Porter, extract from lyrics of ‘Anything Goes’]
In 1934, when Cole Porter wrote ‘Anything Goes’ for his musical of the same name, Terroir doubts he realised just how prophetic his lines might be in 2020, when Cumbria County Council granted permission, for the third time, for the UK’s first new deep coal mine in 30 years. The development of yet another carbon based fuel supply has started a complex debate, revolving around steel production, world transport issues, economics, job creation, and carbon reduction. The government’s refusal to call in the plans, for an inquiry, has further inflamed the debate.
Coal (pun intended) has played a long and complex part in British history, a role which, due to the industrial revolution, has had repercussions around the world. Today, however, Terroir is focussing in on a very small coal-related area, but one which probably punched well above its weight in terms of economic and environmental impact. This is where the ‘porter’ bit comes in, as we will also be looking at the influence of the railways. Welcome to London’s Coal Drops Yard, welcome to Kings Cross.
A Kings Cross gas holder ‘from the back, By Robin Hall, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9210813 Coal Drops Yard Central St Martin College of Art and Design, also ‘from the back’
In the early 18th century, Kings Cross wasn’t much of a destination. In Terroir’s mind the area only became famous for construction of the ‘New Road’ in 1756. This was a sort of early London North Circular by pass, and clearly delineated the edge of London, beyond which one threw one’s rubbush. To the north of the rubbish lay brick works, market gardens, open countryside and small hamlets such as Highgate and Hampstead. To the south, there was a rapid expansion of new housing, later joined by a Small Pox Hospital and later still, a Fever Hospital (classic infilling of the ‘city envelope’, to use modern planning parlance).
But the 19th century swept all this away: engineering, industry, transport, coal, a cycle which was to change Kings Cross - and the whole of Britain - forever. Canals started the revolution in the 1750s. With the completion of the Regent’s Canal in 1820, the canal system could deliver freight from the Midlands directly to north London, via Paddington, Regents Park, to Kings Cross, and then on around east London to Lime House and the Thames. By 1824, the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company had opened the Pancras Gas Works immediately to the south of the Regent’s Canal at Kings Cross and the local landscape was well on the way to full industrialisation.
By the 1840s the Great Northern Railway Company was in town, looking for a depot and passenger station. Land was purchased to the south of the canal for the station (opened in its final position in 1852). The Great Northern Hotel followed in 1854 (at the posh, passenger-orientated southern end of the development) and extensive areas of housing (most on a very different scale of opulence and grandeur) were constructed for the now expanding workforce, in the north. Just to complete the picture, areas to the west of Kings Cross Station were redeveloped in the 1860s for the construction of the Midland Railway’s St Pancras station and goods yards.
This division between the north and the south extremeties of these two railway empires is significant. To use the modern parlance, the outward facing, passenger related elements of the Great Nothern and the Midland Railways were, literally, grand facades aimed at making the travelling public feel good. Unless you worked for the railways, I suspect that the great majority of the public, whether travelling or not, never guessed at the huge, grimy, commercial, ‘back of house’ yards through which passed thousands of wagons carrying thousands of tons of Yorkshire and Midland coal, as well as agricultural supplies such as grain and potatoes. Enclosed by high walls, these extensive land holdings were probably hidden from all except those, perhaps, on top of a double decker bus. The grime was due not just to the cargo but also to the exhaust of the steam locomotives which burnt some of that cargo in the course of their daily shunting duties. Kings Cross must have been a heavily polluted environment.
The maps below show the enormity of the industrial transport undertaking.
All map images 'Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Top left: 1868-1873 survey: red circle - Kings Cross station and St Pancras station; black circle - Pancras Gas Works; green circle - Great Northern Railway yards; maroon circle - Great Midland Railway yards.
Top right: 1893 - 1894 survey Bottom left: 1913 - 1914 survey Bottom right: 1938 revision
Coal was King and where the profit lay. The ‘Coal Drops’ were built in the 1850s, to transfer coal from railway wagons to road carts. The Drops consisted of long linear structures, built of brick and iron, and roofed in slate, and carried high level railway tracks. Coal dropped from bottom doors in the wagon into hoppers beneath or down a shoot for filling bags. Kings Cross boasted two such Drops. There was also a Granary, a Train Assembly Shed, and Eastern and Western Transit Sheds.
Post WWII brought nationalisation of the railways and road transport started to make serious inroads into the railway freight operation. By the 1980s much of the goods yard rail insfraturure had been removed. Amazingly, the gas works continued, on a small scale, to the turn of the century but it was not until 1986 that four of the holders (No 8, and the three conjoined holders, Nos 10, 11, and 12) were listed Grade II ‘as a tangible reminder and physical manifestation of the St Pancras gasworks, which was at one time the largest gasworks in the country, and probably the world.’ https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1464325
By the 1970s Terroir had first-hand knowledge of the Kings Cross area and can attest to its need for regeneration. Using the trains was never an issue but ambling down the side of the station of an evening, waiting to board the sleeper to Aberdeen was always a bit of an adventure; worth it, though, to peer in the window of the model shop (as in railways and cars, I hasten to add) at No. 14 York Way. The shop always seemed such an anachronism in an area so obviously used for prostitution. There was never any evidence of the rave scene which made use of the deserted industrial buildings, but the overnight trains may well have left before that activity really got going. The nature park in Camley Street on the west side of the station, was a welcome addition, however, and painting the listed gas holder frames in black and red provided a cheering focal point, particularly when seen from the train. By the end of the century, however, the railway yards were derelict.
Regeneration of the area began in 2001 with the Channel Tunnel RailLlink and the restoration and expansion of St Pancras station, although the building works seemed never ending. Since then there has been significant investment in the area and the two hotels and Kings Cross Station have all been upgraded.
Which brings us to the regeneration of Coal Drops Yard. Pictures of the Yard at its most derelict are hard to find, but the two wikimedia photos below give a hint of the trnsformation.
Today, Coal Drops Yard is a very different place. It has, apparently, been turned into an ‘Experience’ offering plenty of retail, a culture hub and food outlets. An article in The Architectural Review started with these words: ‘The crowning jewel at King’s Cross Central, Heatherwick Studio’s Coal Drops Yard is yet another in a litany of cultural hubs cum shopping arenas that are carefully choreographed confections of disingenuous ‘authentic’ experiences.’ https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/the-experience-is-everything-coal-drops-yard-london-by-heatherwick-studio For an awful moment I thought they liked it, but phrases such as, ‘The project is a kind of industrial-themed strip mall, poorly disguised as a bustling local marketplace’ made me feel better.
Here is Terroir’s critique. We visited Coal Drops Yard on a damp October afternoon before lockdown 2 started. It was a gloomy day and the site, although not crowded, was uncomfortably busy by lockdown standards, and the food and retail offer was limited. To us, it felt (indeed it was) wind swept, but also rather desolate. The boundary walls have gone, of course, making it accessible to all, but reduces its identity and sense of place. The granary and east and west transit sheds now house Central St Martin’s School of Art and Design as well as shops and offices. The buildings, however, seem stranded in a sea of paving, lacking any reference points or navigational aids to the rest of the site. We came across the entrance to Central St Martin’s almost by chance and were relieved to find something on a human scale to which we could relate. The two coal drops buildings, with their new, raised, flying roofs, like an enormous black moustache, are certainly eye-catching but we found the space below and between them uninviting. The cluster of gas holder frames are splendid and add height and structure. Their location, however, is very confusing until you understand that they were dismantled from their original positions, repaired, restored and re-erected on the opposite side of the canal, as part of the Coal Drops scene.
These photos were taken on a much better day (you can see how much we liked the gas holders) but not all members of Team Terroir were present.
Finding it difficult to find a focus or haven within Coal Drops Yard itself, we attempted to find the canal. Again, the lack of reference points made it a longer search than it should have been, but oh, the relief when we finally located the tow path. Here was a landscape which we could read, understand, and navigate; from which we could appreciate the modernity of the new canalside buildings, and relish the juxtaposition of the old and the new.
When times are easier, the sun is out and the cafes are open, we will try another sortie to Coal Drops Yard. But I suspect that, along with the Architectural Review, we will not wowed by the ‘Experience’ and will once more seek sanctuary on the buzzing, linear highway of the Regent’s Canal.