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 was seaborne. Twenty years later, in 1871, this trade had doubled to over 7 million tons, with railways having captured over 60 per cent. A further fifteen years later over 11 million tons was coming into the London coal tax area yearly, of which nearly 7 million came by railway. The rail-borne quantity did not change greatly over the next twenty years.

According to Gordon (1893), Londoners each burned an average of about a ton of coal annually, so that London residents burned five million tons a year at the turn of the century. Gas companies used about three million tons per year. At that time, total London traffic was about 14 million tons, which leaves industry consuming about six million tons. Much of this would have powered the steamships bunkered in the port of London and locomotives carrying passengers and freight to and from the capital.

The GNR set out to capture a significant part of the coal trade and King’s Cross was the first great coal depot set up by a railway company for the supply of what was an indispensable mineral to the metropolis. 100 years later, in the 1950s and 1960s, the demand for coal declined drastically, both domestically and industrially. Not only were more and more deliveries being made by road, but the Clean Air Act and the development of North Sea gas were having a major impact, with activity in the Railway Lands reflecting this.

King’s Cross coal depot – features and chronology

Plan of the Coal Drops at Kings Cross
Kings Cross Coal Drops

King’s Cross Coal Depot was established on the north and east sides of the Regent’s Canal (see plan). Joseph Cubitt considered that the coal facilities established in 1851, the Eastern Coal Drops and the Coal and Stone Basin, were capable of handling 1,000 tons a day. The latter had a dock of about 200 x 35ft (61 x 11m) for coal traffic on the south side of the basin, and another 125 x 50ft (38 x 15m) for stone traffic on the north side.

The Western Coal Drops were completed in 1860 alongside the Coal and Stone Basin, where there had previously been coal staithes (i.e. coal drops) to serve barges, with a timber viaduct separating the basin from the coal drops. The coal staithes were moved to the opposite (north) side of the southern arm of the basin, and in 1863 were converted to ‘tumbling platforms’, similar to those in use on the NLR, whereby the coal was more quickly unloaded.

The Coal and Fish Offices were started in 1852. Until 1860, the GNR was trading coal on its own account and worked with a single contractor for coal delivery, providing him with stabling, office, granary and hay store. In 1860 a Chancery suit compelled the Company to cease such trading, and it sold or hired out its wagons, vans and sacks to other coal traders, whom it was now obliged to accommodate. The Coal and Fish Offices were therefore enlarged in 1860, and the Company appropriated the offices in the Western Transit Shed of Edward Wiggins, the former coal delivery contractor.

In 1864 the Western Coal Drops were provided with additional lines of rails to remove empty wagons. This proved successful and was adopted for the Eastern Coal Drops, which were provided with a viaduct and traverser for manoeuvring of empty wagons in 1865.

Land at Cambridge Street was acquired from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by Samuel Plimsoll (inventor of the Plimsoll line for ships) for coal drops in 1864. The next year, houses, stables and canal-side wharves were cleared for the erection of a viaduct that brought the railway across the canal to Plimsoll’s coal depot on the west side of the canal. The first coal was consigned to Samuel Plimsoll’s sidings in July 1866. Further pieces of land were bought from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in April 1868 and used to extend the coal drops. This allowed the first coal to be barged from Cambridge Street in June that year. Little coal was barged after 1893.

In 1867 a viaduct was constructed across the Regent’s Canal to serve the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company. The first coal consigned to the gasworks was delivered in January 1868 and consignments continued until the gasworks ceased to manufacture gas in 1904.

During 1875–76 the southern part of the Eastern Coal Drops were converted into five warehouses to meet a demand for accommodation from traders using the London Station. The first block was let to Bagley, Wild & Co., a bottle manufacturer.

In 1891 the GN Company purchased the Cambridge Street Coal Drops from Samuel Plimsoll’s heirs. They gradually extended the coal drops up to Wharf Road over the decade 1896 to 1905 and added offices for coal merchants, partly in response to large extensions made to their Somers Town Depot by the Midland Company, with which the GN was in strong competition. Coal sold by the Midland Company was supplied from Derbyshire fields that were closer and therefore involved lower transport costs.

In 1897–99 the Western Coal Drops were converted to become part of the Western Goods Shed, a two-level warehouse for outwards goods built over the Coal and Stone Basin, which was infilled. At the same time, the Plimsoll Viaduct was rebuilt in iron on brick arches.

In the earlier part of this period, up to 1900, coal and other commodities were being increasingly diverted to satellite GNR depots, including Ashburton Grove, Clarence Yard, Finsbury Park, High Vale, Caledonian Road, Hackney Wick, Brick Lane and Elephant & Castle. This coincided with a rapid expansion of London into new suburbs that were more efficiently served from satellite depots than from a central depot like King’s Cross. After 1900, this levelled off.

Coal Drops Yard

Cross section of Coal Drops
Cross section of Coal Drops

The coal drops in the goods yard comprise two long, slate-roofed ranges facing each other across a sett-paved yard.  For the first range, the Eastern Coal Drops, coal was discharged through bottom doors into storage hoppers located above the ground-level bays where the coal was bagged up, and into which coal merchants’ carts could be backed for loading. Traversers at the southern end transferred empty wagons to a flanking three-siding viaduct on the west side for return (Malcolm Tucker). These triple-level, covered coal drops were themselves unusual, and distinguished by open arches on either side to let out the coal dust (Malcolm Tucker). They were very significant in the first rail-borne delivery of coal to London.

Photo of Coal Drops from Outside
Coal Drops (Malcolm Tucker)

However, Samuel Plimsoll found that the drops tended to break the soft coal that he traded and, after trials with his improved coal drops, built a new set of coal drops on the opposite bank of the Regent’s Canal.

Cambridge Street

Photo of Cambridge Street Coal Drops and Plimsoll Bridge
Cambridge Street Coal Drops and Plimsoll Bridge

Samuel Plimsoll’s first contact with the GN Board was in 1853, when he proposed supplying coal from the South Yorkshire field over the GN line. After several hiccups, including his bankruptcy, this led to a contract to supply coal via the Eastern Coal Drops. Plimsoll was not happy with the high level of breakages that were incurred when discharging from wagons to hoppers. It is likely that these breakages were due in part to the peculiar class of soft coal that he brought from South Yorkshire. He was allowed to use part of the yard to experiment with other discharge systems. In consequence, a timber viaduct was then constructed across the coal yard for access to Plimsoll’s Coal Depot in Cambridge Street (now Camley Street).

Samuel Plimsoll’s coal drops in Cambridge Street started operations in July 1866 with thirteen drops. Rapid growth of business resulted in a major expansion to forty-nine drops in 1868, nine of which were extended over canal wharves to allow coal to be dropped into barges alongside. The image (Irwell Press) shows the coal drops looking south-east along the traverser, with Plimsoll bridge over the Regent’s Canal on the left. There was space for four wagons on each of the coal drops on the right. The row of posts carries the electrical supply picked up by the traverser.

Gordon (1893) described the scene at Cambridge Street Depot thus:You can see theta [sic] of all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent, at work in dozens up that curious thoroughfare – though it looks like a cul-de-sac – which runs out of Pancras Road under the arches by Battle Bridge, round by the gasworks and between the Midland and Great Northern Railways. There you will find coals to the left of you, coals to the right of you, volleying and thundering. In every arch is a platform; on every platform are two weighing machines; over each weighing machine is a shoot, which delivers into the sacks on the scales, and from which the coal stream is cut off with a lever much as you turn off your water at a tap. Overhead are the waggons; down the shoots the coal roars, and booms, and hisses in a cloud of dust, as sack after sack fills up and is run out on the hand truck into the vans, in the shafts of which stand the horses gently bobbing their nosebags and utterly indifferent to the dust and din.