Nov 6: The Kings Cross redevelopment

A special short urban walk with my good friend Richard Challoner, to investigate the progress of the Kings Cross redevelopment and see Culross Place, a fine row of buildings threatened with demolition. Culross Place, built by the Midland Railway for its workers, was an early example of social housing. An ethos of bygone times, with little place in the shiny world of the current Kings Cross redevelopment. It is well worth preserving, but this is unlikely given the money at stake.

History repeats itself all too often. We moved on an earlier example of plunder at the combined churchyard of St Pancras and St Giles. During the construction of the original line to St Pancras station in 1860, the Midland Railway removed hundreds of graves from the churchyard. Then, as now, a burial ground had legal protection, but a determined corporation would always get its way in the end. At least the bodies were reinterred in a mass grave.

Several tombstones from the cleared graves were reset around a tree, known as the ‘Hardy tree’. Thomas Hardy, later to become the successful novelist, had been employed by the Bishop of London to ensure that the human remains were reinterred in a dignified manner.


Today: 3 miles
Overall total: 140 miles