King's Cross Railway Lands
While negotiations for purchase of the land for King’s Cross passenger station were stalled, William Cubitt, the Consulting Engineer, persuaded the GNR board to construct a temporary Maiden Lane terminus in 1850. When the King’s Cross passenger station opened in 1852, the facade featured a clock tower with Dent’s award-winning clock from the Great Exhibition as the station clock to show railway time.
On the other side of the Regent’s Canal, King’s Cross Goods Depot played an important role in coal supply and in provisioning the metropolis, primarily from the eastern parts of the country that the East Coast Main Line and its branch lines served.
The East Coast Main Line was in direct competition with the West Coast Main Line for passenger services to Scotland, and the race to the north had several phases over the 40 years from the late 1880s, culminating in the Flying Scotsman, probably the most famous train of all.
The most coveted job for most railwaymen was that of driver of the long-distance passenger express locomotives, a self-contained aristocracy of the working class. To reach this exalted position, they had to climb a ladder with many rungs, starting as cleaners of steam locomotives. Working with steam was a dirty and dangerous job.
After the First World War, as economic decline took its toll of the workforce, loyalty to the railway company was weakened and a group of union men of high intellectual calibre took on management.
The Beeching Report of 1963 hastened the end of wagon-load traffic and recommended a national network of terminals served by express freightliner trains. The Freightliner initiative started at King’s Cross, from where it was also the first to be withdrawn.
King’s Cross Railway Lands fell into decline as the combustion engine increasingly took on the duties of collection, transport and distribution. The industrial ruins thus created attracted a wealth of private initiatives, which colonised the vacant spaces. Mutoid Waste Company staged spectacular shows in the late 1980s in the former Motor Repair Depot, while a decade later what is now Coal Drops Yard was transformed into Club City.
The features of interest in the King’s Cross Railway Lands are shown on the aerial photograph. While the photo does not cover all the railway lands, the areas not shown, such as Top Shed, stables and coal storage grounds, no longer contain any significant heritage.
Maiden Lane terminus
The Maiden Lane terminus was provided as a temporary passenger station at King’s Cross to capture traffic for the Great Exhibition, an international exhibition that
Kings Cross passenger station
The strength and simplicity of Lewis Cubitt’s design for the main passenger station is seen in the painting. The station was constructed of yellow stock
The station clock
In the centre of the British Avenue at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was Dent’s Turret Clock, awarded the Council Medal for its strength, accuracy
Coal supply
Demand and supply When the King’s Cross goods station opened, the trade in coal imported into London had reached about 3.5 million tons. Almost all
Provisioning the metropolis
Yorkstone was the traditional London paving stone and had been used for paving the arrival and departure platforms at King’s Cross. The GNR was well
Flying Scotsman: the race to the North
In 1888, driven by commercial rivalry, the East Coast and West Coast consortia started competing fiercely over the speed of their express services on these
The Freightliner initiative
By the early 1960s the writing was clearly on the wall for wagonload traffic and by 1970 almost all the ‘sundries/small’ traffic associated with the
Mutoid Waste Company
Artists and craftspeople are forever seeking studios that they can afford and from the early 1980s were attracted to the derelict and neglected Victorian warehouses
Club City
King’s Cross goods yard had always operated twenty-four hours a day, but this activity took place out of the gaze of the public. After the