Past, Present & Future On Show @ Kings Cross Visitor Centre

If you’ve spent any time around Kings Cross lately, you can’t fail to have noticed the changes that have been taking place – the station’s new concourse is now open and the ‘temporary’ structure at the front of the building, built in the 1970s, is finally coming down.

Go around the back of the station and you’ll discover a transformation that is equally dramatic as work has started on a new development which will cover 67 acres and involve the refurbishment of 20 Victorian buildings, 50 new builds, 20 new streets established, 2000 new homes and the creation of 10 new public parks and squares. Not only that, but the area will have a new postcode – joining the West End and the City of London with a three digit prefix, say hello to N1C.

A newly opened Visitor Centre in the Granary Building (which also houses the Central St Martins University Of The Arts) has models and displays that show what the area will look like when work is completed in 2020, and they also run free guided walks to show visitors what’s already happening. Yesterday I tagged along on one of these walks to see what all the fuss is about…

Led by Linda Redmond, the Visitor Centre Co-Ordinator, we went on a circuitous route that took in all of the sights, starting with Granary Square. I visited the new square last year but since then they’ve made some changes – for one thing, they’ve altered the programming of the 1080 fountains, which are now beating out rhythms as they bubble up. I also discovered that they’re positioned in these particular spots because they mark the routes of water channels which used to lead from the canal to the building’s basement – here hoppers would be used to load and unload grain and potatoes from barges for their continued journey along the waterways or for transportation across London by horse and cart.

Across the square the coal and fish offices which, along with other buildings in the area were built by Lewis Cubert in 1850, are getting a wash and brush up in anticipation of reopening as a restaurant and offices later this year. While they haven’t served their original purpose as the site’s administrative offices since the ’60s they were occupied by a dance studio in the 1970s and later by a loose collective of anti-apartheid musicians from South Africa.

At the side of the main granary building are the Western and Eastern Transit Sheds – these are currently being refurbished so that they can accommodate retail, restaurants and bars with offices up in the gables. The Western Handyside Canopy sits between the buildings, providing cover from the elements for the grain and potatoes that would have been awaiting transit. Today this space accommodates food fairs from time to time and the University students also use it as a space to exhibit their larger graduation pieces.  The handsome but rather dishevelled ‘coal drop’ on the opposite side of the granary, along with the Plimsoll viaduct (which was commissioned by Samuel Plimsoll, the MP who carried through the legislation for the ‘plimsoll line’ to protect ships) will be home to market stalls and more retail – they’re hoping that this new space will be a rival to Spitalfields, Borough and the other high-class markets around London.

Over on the other side, next to the shell of the Eastern Handyside Canopy, you might be lucky enough to spot some very interesting artifacts – a line of old  telegraph poles which have been remained untouched for decades. They’re hoping to keep these in place so that they become a feature of the new development – I hope they manage to achieve this because they do look rather attractive silhouetted against the sun…

Some of the other Victorian buildings that are being retained and refurbished are of equal historical significance. Behind Kings Cross station is the German Gymnasium – this was built in 1865 by Edward Gruning for the German Gymnastic Association. This was the first purpose-built athletics and gymnastics building constructed in the UK and held many meetings of the early National Olympian Association before its closure just prior to the First World War – ironically despite its national allegiance it was heavily damaged by bombing from Zepellins during the conflict. This building is currently being converted into what is likely to be a spectacular restaurant and bar.

If you’re familiar with this part of Kings Cross you might note the absence of some of its largest structures – the four towering gasholders that have dominated the skyline since the mid 1800s have disappeared, but they’ve not been melted down for their iron. They were dismantled and are currently undergoing restoration up in Yorkshire – when they return the ‘Siamese Triplets’ (as gasholders 10,11 and 12 are colloquially known) will form the framework for circular apartment blocks and gasholder 8  will be a huge work of art. Visitors will be able to wander around and inside its skeleton and admire the Victorians’ handiwork.

The next Victorian building that will be put back into use is the Great Northern Hotel, a Lewis Cubitt-designed hotel from 1854. It’s curved shape defines one end of the new Kings Cross station concourse and it will reopen as a 94 bedroom luxury boutique hotel before the Spring…

In terms of the new buildings that are going up, large blocks of social and sheltered housing at the rear of the development are already occupied and the Urban Nest student accommodation building will be the next place to welcome residents. The London Borough of Camden is also moving its HQ to the site – already the recipient of environmental awards, the concrete core of the building has been completed and it’s 17,000 square metres of space should be fully fitted out by early next year. The building will house offices, a library and leisure facilities and will allow the council to dispose of the ugly Town Hall extension that currently sits on the Euston Road. Following the lead of the Olympic Park, there’s also going to be a combined heat and power plant which will supply the energy needs of all the buildings, including hot water.

There’s one rather special temporary space in the new Kings Cross development – environmental education charity Global Generation’s ‘Skip Garden’. Working with local school children, they offer gardening workshops and a BTEC course in business and sustainability using a combination of polytunnels and the aforementioned skips, which are filled with earth and are used for growing vegetables and herbs – in fact they produce some plants which students at the nearby University of the Arts use to create classic dyes for their fashion work. As part of their fundraising efforts the centre also puts on dinners serving food grown on-site and also offers a unique space for meetings – their very own yurt. The other notable feature of the ‘Skip Garden’ is that it is completely mobile – as developers have needed plots of land they have been able to pick up the skips and other structures and move them to another part of the site. While they started out in a space just behind the German Gymnasium a few years ago, they moved to their current spot near York Way within the last year.

I’ve only touched on the things that you’ll discover on the walking tour, so if you would like to book one of these exploratory journeys around Kings Cross for yourself you can visit this web page to check the next available dates – tours are run several times a day most days of the week and are completely free of charge. Even if you’re not planning to take the tour, you can pop along to the Visitor Centre itself which has lots of information on the area’s future. If you think you’d like to make a day of it, I can also recommend some other places to visit when you’re done – both Camley Street Natural Park and St Pancras Gardens are worth a look, and they’re only a stones-throw away.

To keep up to date with new developments you can also follow Kings Cross N1C on Twitter.

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