Does Colour Matter?
Actually, timing is everything. In February, the Mayor of London announced new names and colours for the six London Overground lines which are currently identified by a drab and dull orange. The new names provide something for everybody – women, football, healthcare, LGBTQ+ community, the Caribbean community, textiles, Huguenots, democracy, freedom and independence. More details on https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2024/february/london-s-overground-lines-to-be-given-new-names-and-colours-in-historic-change-to-capital-s-transport-network
And the colours ? The Lioness line – yellow! Mildmay – blue! Windrush – red! The Weaver line comes in with – Maroon! The suffragettes get – green! And Liberty – grey. GREY? How did that sneak in? Apparently the Liberty line references ‘the historical independence of the people of Havering’. What did Havering do to deserve grey?
We are also disappointed to note that the drab orange is still in evidence. Please note: opinions on orange may differ.
In March, Transport for London (TfL) went green - again - with the launch of the Green Link Walk. This is the eighth route in the Walk London Network (a group of trails which includes the Green Chain and The Capital Ring). Terroir has yet to find out if Walk London green is a significantly different Pantone colour to Suffragette green…
More of the Green Link in a minute, but the timing of these colourful initiatives must surely have some significance? Ah yes: ‘good’ news is always helpful in the run up to an election. Sadiq Khan will be battling for a second term as Mayor of London on 2nd May. Choose your political pantone with care.
Back to the Green Link. It wobbles for 15 miles between Epping Forest and Peckham, somewhat like a banana lying on a roughly north/south axis. It aims to improve Londoner’s health and well-being, be accessible, cycle and wheelchair friendly, sustainable (with the ultimate inclusion of two new rain gardens) and link with a variety of green spaces.
We are also told that it ‘fulfil[s] a mayoral manifesto commitment’. Yes, I think we have already mentioned that election!
To date, the main criticism which Terroir has heard is that the route entails a lot of pavement pounding, suggesting that the Link is more grey than green. Having trialled just one section, we agree that tarmac terrain is hard on the joints but that ‘green’ ocurs fairly frequently and that ‘grey’ can be beautiful.
Follow us on a walk from the Angel to Clerkenwell, probably less than 2 miles but packed with interest. We’ve annotated a section of the Footways map to show our start (the red arrow) and finish, at the yellow arrow. https://footways.london/the-green-link
Our start at Angel Tube is perhaps 200m from the Regent’s Canal and the Green Link. The Link doesn’t use the canal-side paths, however, but sticks to the local roads to ensure good access for wheelchairs. In the image below right, the Link runs behind the trees on the left hand side of the photograph.
The Link crosses the canal (left) over the top of the 960 yard long Islington Tunnel, which was opened in 1816. In March 2024 you can still see something of the canal through the springtime foliage.
The first stop is Colebrook Row Gardens and Duncan Terrace Gardens. These linear spaces were laid out on the route of the New River, an early 17th century water way constructed to bring drinking water from Hertfordshire into London. You can walk the route and admire the green spaces which adorn its route. https://londongardenstrust.org/features/NewRiver.htm
Colebrook Row Gardens (above) and Duncan Terrace Gardens (below) including a spectacular view of some of the nearby ‘grey’ elements.
Crossing City Road reveals the splendid spectacle of the 1903 Angel Hotel (now offices), before going ‘green’ again in Owens Fields. No moans about the lack of apostrophe, please (see below).
Crossing into Chadwell Street we find some more spectacular townscape (I’ll stop referring to it as ‘grey’as I think I think I’ve made the point that it’s anything but)...
… and pass on through into Myddleton Square (below). We presume this is named after the Sir John Myddleton who oversaw the construction of the New River. The square was laid out by William Chadwell Mylne, the second son of Robert Mylne (1733–1811), surveyor to the New River Company (you just can’t get away from it), as well as builder of the first Blackfriars Bridge. Son William constructed the square ‘in a Georgian style’ between 1822 and 1843 (remember that George IV had died in 1830, but I suppose the Victorians hadn’t really got going by then) and set his St Mark’s church (built 1825 - 27) right in the middle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark%27s_Church,_Myddelton_Square
LLoyd Square comes next, a ‘Garden Square’ constructed between 1828 and 1832 by John Booth and family, surveyors; I can find no connection with the New River but Wikipedia tells me that these sharp suited, clean-shaven, Greek revival style, structures are all Grade II Listed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Square
The pavement pounding is probably taking its toll by now, so we will hurry on to Wilmington Square, for a bit of green and pink relief.
Meant to be the size of Myddleton Square, ambitions for Wilmington Square had to be curtailed for ‘financial reasons’. This one was built by ‘John Wilson (born c. 1780), a Gray's Inn Lane plumber and glazier who had become a builder and developer’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Square
Rested? We’ll look in on Spa Field Park. History suggests that Spa Field has always been well frequented by the living and the dead, by those seeking a cure at the 18th century spa and those seeking a venue for political rallies. It was well used on the day of Terroir’s visit, but maybe a tad too much Photinia?
And now for the big finale: St James’ Church, Clerkenwell. The current church dates from 1792, built by local architect James Carr and ‘clearly influenced by Wren and Gibbs’ and subsequently altered by many as need arose.
So, does colour matter? Absolutely! We need a world full of colour, in landscapes, in people, in politics, in society, in life. Thankfully, the ‘Green’ link is as varied and rainbow coloured as TfL’s Overground ideas. Although I’m still not convinced by Liberty grey.
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.