Tag: Kings Cross

Waterpoint, St Pancras, London N1

This structure is visible from the North side of the Regents Canal at Coal Drops yard. It was a “water point” for replenishing the boilers of steam engines. The top housed a water tank.

Waterpoint, seen from the Regents Canal towpath at Coal Drops. August 14th 2024, in sketch book 14

Here’s a map to show where it is. I’ve seen this structure often when walking along the canal, and it’s been on my “sketch-list” for a while, so I was glad that a co-incidence of weather and time gave me the opportunity to sketch it.

Waterpoint, circled.

I was sketching from the Regents Canal towpath right next to St Pancras Lock.

Sketching Waterpoint, looking south across St Pancras Lock.

It turns out that this structure is open to visitors from time to time. By an amazing co-incidence, one of the visiting days was the weekend after I did my sketch. The kind and informative guides there patiently answered the many questions I had, and allowed me to photograph their video and their display boards.

For me, the really fascinating thing about this structure is that it has moved. It was not always in this location. It used to be next to St Pancras Station. It was built around the same time as the station, 1870. In 2001 it was moved North, to its current location.

It was designed by team of Sir George Gilbert Scott, who designed the St Pancras Hotel. Since its purpose was to fill the tanks of steam trains, it was right next to the railway lines. You can see it here:

Photo of a video shown at the Waterpoint.

Here it is on an 1871 map: (click to enlarge)

my annotations to show the original position next to St Pancras, and the current position
On the 1871 map it is labelled “Pumping House”
1871 map on display at the Waterpoint (copyright National Library of Scotland)

I think I can spot it on this archive aerial photo from 1964. Here is the link to the picture:

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/eaw143766#

The water point is just beyond the far right hand edge of the St Pancras train shed, in the centre left of the photo on the link above.

Here are some low resolution images to help you find it.

Detail from the aerial photo above. The gas holders shown in these photos have also moved.

Here are modern maps annotated to show the original position and the current position:

Google map. Waterpoint moved A to B.
Waterpoint moved A to B.
Gasholders moved X to Y.
map (c) openstreetmap contributors

To move it, the original Water Point was cut horizontally into three sections. The lower section was left behind. A new lower section was built in the new location. The middle and upper sections went by road to the new location and were stacked on top of the newly built lower section. You can see, by changes in the bricks, the joins between the sections.

The new lower section is clearly visible.
The line of new bricks at the top marks the join between the middle and upper sections
View of the south side of the Waterpoint, annotated to show the sections

On the side of the Waterpoint visible from the canal, there is a clear “roof” pattern in the bricks, which I noticed when sketching it.

This marks the position of a shed that was fastened to the structure in its original position. See the pictures below.

Original position – note the shed on the left
What was left when it was moved.
The display boards show the project to move the Water Point. These are 2001 photos.

These photos and maps show how much the area has changed. See all the gas holders! They were constructed on the south side of the Regents Canal, because that’s where the gas works was. They originally held coal gas, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen, manufactured from coal. Until 2010 they were a landmark for anyone who made this journey into Kings Cross regularly.

Here’s a frame from the 1963 film “Alfie” captured by @runningthenorthernheights, showing the gasholders in their original position.

Thanks to @runningthenorthernheights

The gasholders were decommissioned in 2000, but several of them couldn’t be destroyed because they were listed, so they just stood there for ten years. Then they were dismantled, stored, preserved and reconstructed in the years 2010-2015. They are now on the north side of the Regents Canal. Gas holder No. 8 was the first to be reconstructed, in 2015. It surrounds a small park. Gas holders 10, 11 and 12 followed, surrounding luxury apartments, part of the Kings Cross development. (https://www.kingscross.co.uk/gasholder-park)

Gasholders seen from the top of the Waterpoint, August 2024. I did the sketch from the far side of the canal.

Here are more photos from my visit to Waterpoint in August 2024.

Ball cock in the (now empty!) tank on the top
View from the top
View from the top
The “chimney” up close. The guide is explaining that it is purely decorative. It is solid: there’s no “chimney”.

I was very glad to have the opportunity to visit this quirky building. Recommended!

6 St Chad’s Place – Jamboree WC1X

I went to sketch this place in a back alley near Kings Cross because I enjoyed the geometry of the roof, spotted on a morning run some time ago.

6 St Chad’s Place, Jamboree, London WC1X 9HH – sketched 6 February 2024 2pm in Sketchbook 14

This is “Jamboree” where there is live music, dancing and events: It is open Tuesday evening to Sunday.

“music forms from around the world, cabaret, European folk, dances.”

(https://www.jamboreevenue.co.uk/)

I was expecting the hidden alleyway to be deserted on a Tuesday lunchtime, and so it was for the first hour. But then it became suddenly busy. A small ambulance backed carefully down the alleyway in front of me and parked. Its doors opened and two paramedics went round to the back of the car. They lifted out their equipment and walked calmly off down the alley. After that excitement, a certain calm returned to the alley, insofar as calm is possible a few hundred metres from Kings Cross.

I carried on sketching, now working on the beer barrels to the left of the picture. But the calm did not last long. Two cars arrived and people dressed in orange hi-vis vests scrambled out. They unlocked a gate off the picture to the left, and went in, leaving their car on the pavement. Then a van arrived, it parked directly in front of me, and a further person in a hi-vis outfit got out. He looked across the bonnet of his van and saw me sketching. “Oh, sorry,” he said, “Am I in your way?” I said that yes, he kind of was. I stood ready, however, to concede the space to him, as he looked important and determined in his bright orange overalls and hard hat. But to my surprise he grinned at me, “Ten minutes! I’ll be just ten minutes!”. He rushed off through the gate where the other people had gone. I abandoned the beer barrels and worked on the roofs.

The roofs were quite a challenge, and they productively occupied the 8 minutes until the driver came rushing back out, looking triumphant, accompanied by a selection of the people who’d arrived earlier. “I told this woman I’d be ten minutes,” he explained to his entourage. He raised a hand to me in greeting, got into his car and rumbled off, leaving the other people standing on the cobbles. I asked them what they were working on. “The bridge,” they said. Oh yes, I was standing on a bridge. The train lines were below.

Annotated Google map of the location.

It’s in a labyrinth of roads and railway lines just to the east of Kings Cross mainline station.Here are some maps to show the location. Walk east from Kings Cross, about 10 minutes.

On the maps, the blue line represents the River Fleet, which is alongside the Kings Cross Road, underground. It flows from left to right across the map (West to East) and then heads South down to join the Thames beneath Blackfriars Bridge.

The river Fleet, before it became an underground sewer in 1825, flowed along the western side of Pancras Road and then eastward along the south side of the common, crossing the old highway (now Gray’s Inn Road) north of St. Chad’s Place.

‘Battle Bridge Estate’, in Survey of London: Volume 24, the Parish of St Pancras Part 4: King’s Cross Neighbourhood, ed. Walter H Godfrey and W McB. Marcham (London, 1952), pp. 102-113. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol24/pt4/pp102-113 [accessed 7 February 2024].

St Chad’s Place slopes down towards the River Fleet. This area was once the location of St Chad’s Well, a spring said to have health-giving properties. It operated from about 1815 to 1860. I found a picture in the London Picture Archives, reproduced below with their permission.

Image © London Metropolitan Archives, City of London Metropolitan Prints Collection LPA 006123 St Chads Well Catalogue No: SC_PZ_SP_01_556 Accession No: Saint Pancras P 01688 Date of execution: 1856
Record No: 305367 used with permission under licence dated 08/02/2024

The website “A London Inheritance” has an informative article about St Chad’s Place and the Well: https://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/st-chads-place-and-a-lost-well/, which is well worth a read.

A river, a bridge, a well, a passage and a music venue. It’s amazing what you find.

Looking east from where I was sketching.
Street art in St Chad’s Place
In St Chad’s Place, looking North towards the Kings Cross Road.
North entrance of St Chad’s Place. The cyclist is coming out of St Chad’s Place and into the Kings Cross Road.
Street name in the Kings Cross Road

Here is work in progress on the sketch:

The colours are:

  • For the sky and pavement – a special new colour, Schminke Horadam “Random grey” – “formulated each year from surplus pigments”. This is the 2022 edition.
  • Rose madder permanent – also on the pavement
  • Mars Yellow
  • Ultramarine Blue
  • Green Serpentine Genuine
  • Buff Titanium
  • Fired Gold Ochre in the brickwork
  • Burnt Umber
Arches Aquarelle paper in a sketchbook made by Wyvern Bindery (Sketchbook 14).