Kings Cross and St Pancras

Earlier that day we were in St James's Park spotting birds and arrived to the station around 2pm.
Not too long ago, I had a chat with English colleagues of mine about the name of this station, that it's St Pancras or King's Cross. They did not know exactly, but we guessed that St Pancras is the international one, and King's Cross is the domestic one, and actually, it's two separate, abutting railway stations. Harry Potter's train left from the latter.

Platform 9 3/4

The front of St Pancras is a beautiful hotel (formerly Midland, now the Renaissance Hotel), designed by George Gilbert Scott. Scott was one of the most prolific designers: about 800 building designs or reconstructions are associated with his name (such as the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park).

The Renaissance Hotel

Inside the station stands 'The Meeting Place', Paul Day's monumental sculpture. Not just the public, but our family was also divided over this sculpture.
The message is clear enough in itself here on the platforms of Eurostar which connects England and France. The statue was modelled after the sculptor and his French wife, Catherine.

The Meeting Place

Leaving the station, first we started off eastward in Euston Road. There was a wide variety of people and heavy traffic which is typical in the vicinity of such a big railway stations.

First, the Lighthouse was we wanted to see which is a lighthouse built on top of  a house, but it was renovated, so we missed it. The origin of the lighthouse is uncertain, although the building has been from the 19th-century. Based on a theory it was a marketing trick of the oyster bar in the ground floor, in an age when oysters were cheap food and the lighthouse lamp light signalled the arrival of the fresh product, so that was also visible from afar.

A borrowed picture of The Lighthouse Building (Photograph by Mike Peel)

From there we started back on the south side of Euston Road, and then we went further down into smaller streets. In Argyle Square, almost every house is a small hotel. The process of the transition from houses to hotels started around 1860, though at that time these hotels were rather brothels. Prostitution was present until the 1990s, when the area was rehabilitated. The Pet Shop Boys's 'King's Cross' in 1987 still shows that darker era.

We go across the cosy Whidborne Street 

We followed the small alleyways of Whidborne Street and Argyle Walk then walked further in Tonbridge Street, and then from there we went in Bidborough Street. Our aim was Woburn Walk, a little bit further away. This street is a separate, small world with its small shops and shop windows. William Butler Yeats, the famous Irish poet lived here, in the number 18, between 1895 and 1919.

The shops of  Woburn Walk

Then we visited the peculiar, Greek-style St Pancras Church which was consecrated in 1822.

St Pancras Parish Church

The main entrance is from Upper Woburn Place. Both on Euston Road and temple garden side, robust caryatids are standing; they are robust to a fault. The reason of this is a mistake: the creator, John Charles Felix Rossi worked on them in the studio for three years, and when he delivered them into place, realized that they were too tall to their place! So he chopped them up on the spot, and shortened the statues. Fortunately, it's hard to spot it because the sculptures' chitons have allowed the operation.

Caryatids

The garden-facing caryatids are protecting the crypt, which hasn't been used for burials since the 1850s. During the Second World War it was used as air raid shelter, but now exhibitions are held there. When we were there, there was an Italian exhibition, "When Material Transforms into Art".

Exhibition in the Crypt - Anna liked this dress

After visiting the exhibition, we went over to the other side of Euston Road, we crossed a small park in front of Euston station and headed to Melton Street which later becomes Cardington Street.
In London there are some abandoned, closed subway station, here you can find such a sad building. Euston Underground station himself exists, but this is a ceased exit.

Dead station

At the end of Cardington Street we found the abandoned building of London Temperance Hospital which prepared us for the  bleakness of Hampstead Road. The hospital was founded in 1885 by a teetotaller association. The main goal was to avoid using alcohol for curing. From 1939 up till 1990 it worked as temperance hospital.

The abandoned hospital

The southern part of Hampstead Road is so ugly as it is. Noisy, dirty and hideous buildings are everywhere. So we were forced to endure a whole 10 minutes until we were going through it.

Grey, noisy, bleak

We went past a block of houses which we had spot once from the top of the London Eye. This is the Ampthill Estate, which was funny-looking from the distance with its different coloured roofs, but they were just so big, grey blocks in reality.

Ampthill Estate

Arriving to Mornington Crescent you can go further to visit the exciting, busy Camden but we turned right. As moving away from the Hampstead Road, all was becoming more relaxed. On the corner of Oakley Square and Crowndale Road was the Working Men's College, the world's first workers' school, founded by the Christian Socialists in 1854.

Working Men's College

Walking down on Crowndale Road we saw this former church building converted to theatre. The Theatro Technis has been operating since the '50s as fringe theatre company with strong ties to Cyprus.

Fringe theatre

On the other side of the old buildings of St Pancras Hospital and St Pancras Gardens is Goldington Crescent Gardens. Walking through it, we 'admired' the 'Clouds', these extremely ugly looking rather tumour-like statues. Well, we are not the only one who disliked it.

Cloud

St Pancras Gardens is a nice quiet (grave) park, just a few people were walking there other than us. First we visited St Pancras Old Church. This place is supposed to have been a Christian site of worship since the 4th Century.

St Pancras Old Church

The interior of the church

The graveyard is fused with the park, where a number of really interesting things caught our attention. A strange twisty tree with branches as if they were writhing people:

Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy in his young age was supervisor of railway construction here in 1865 (originally studied civil engineering). During the construction the temple garden was cut in half, and the graves were just emptied. Hardy was absolutely horrified when he saw the scattered remains of the dead, and was really shaken especially seeing a two-headed skeleton. He kicked up a stink, ordered the train company to mend its crime, and he hoarded  the tombstones around the root of this tree. As two of our London books have it.
In contrast, according to a little tablet placed there, though the tree was Hardy's idea indeed, he just revised the exhumation of the dead which passed off nicely. So maybe just another urban legend?

Hardy's Tree

The following image shows the mausoleum designed by Sir John Soane for himself and his family, and it contains every architectural feature which is characterise his oeuvre. There are two Grade I (unchangeable monument) sepulchres in London; this one and Marx's monument in Highgate Cemetery. Supposedly, this mausoleum served as model of the famous London red telephone box.

Soane's mausoleum

We went through,  under the rails coming from St Pancras, to reach the Camley Street Natural Park, which sounded fantastic in the midst of many rail and industrial areas, but unfortunately it is closed on Saturdays.

This was the umpteenth walk of ours in London when we ran into the Regent's Canal.

Regent's Canal

The canal flows from the Paddington, through the northern part of Regent's Park down till the docks, near the western part of Canary Wharf. It was extremely impressive, as this area which we visited  was restored and developed.

Located on the other side of the canal is the renovated Granary Square situated with fountains, chairs, benches, neighbouring a college of the University of Arts London - you can cross over a footbridge to get there.

Granary Square

Then,along the canal, we went till the Battlebridge Bassin, which was formerly a harbour. The bassin is extremely quiet and beautiful with apartments with a view to the water, restaurants and houseboats. On the other side of the harbour is the Canal Museum.

Battlebridge Bassin

We approached the harbour through the Kings Place, which is a large office building with concert and exhibition halls. Restaurant, café and The Guardian editorial offices has been here as well.

Kings Place

Long time ago, there was a settlement called Battlebridge in the area; this is the origin of the name. According to tradition here was a battle between the army of Boudica, the warrior queen and the Romans around 60- 61 AD.

And to link back to the beginning of the post: another tradition is that Boudica's tomb  is under the platforms 9 and 10 in Kings Cross somewhere, so the place where Harry Potter usually disappears off.
Close to the end of our trip, we reached Scala, the famous concert venue. In daylight it is more like an abandoned hotel, though it works.

The Scala

The building was originally made ​​for cinema in 1914, but World War I intervened, so at first the nearly completed building had been used for different purpose. As cinema, it finally opened up in 1920.

In the early '70s the movie expanded its profile and became scene of rock concerts as well. Here, for example, had the only concert of Iggy Pop and the Stooges in London. Then, in 1974, local residents didn't bear more noise, and with petitions they managed to make close the venue.
The Scala reopened in 1981 as movie again, and in 1993 went bankrupt.
In 1999 it was renovated, expanded, and has been working as a cinema, disco and concert hall since then. Its performers, among others, were Deftones, Coldplay and Avril Lavigne.

This walk took about three and a half hours.