Save Kings Cross Coach Station from demolition!!

Earlier this week I was walking towards Kings Cross Station along Euston after attending a talk at the British Library. I was horrified to look across the road and see that Belgrove House, until quite recently home to the Post Office, Access Storage and other companies, is currently wrapped in plastic with signs all around the whole block to Argyle Square telling us that demolition is in progress.  

These pics of the building, taken as screen shots from Google Streetview dated July 2022, show that demolition signs have been on the building since well before that date and, had I reinstated my 'All change here! guided walk about 1930s KX architecture this year I would have already noticed being as this building obviously features as a stop on the tour. 

Hey, it may not as impressive as it's counterpart in Victoria, but it's a well-constructed yet understated neo-Georgian style that sports many key 'Art Deco' motifs including Jazz Age metal grilles and elegant brickwork. 

Also, it's an important link to the past. But having already posted about this potential loss on my Facebook page, and gleaned responses, it appears that Camden Council have been negligent as regards their assessment of the site and the age of the building. It’s hard to believe, seeing as this sits a few doors down from Camden Town Hall, but they think the original coach station was demolished and replaced with this structure. Yet this is the bus station, not a replacement.  To my mind it’s the brick finish that confuses people. If interwar buildings aren’t rendered and painted white then people don’t recognise them.  Also worth mentioning that Victoria Coach Station didn’t look as bright when it was first built. Go google.  

Lazy idiots. Especially because photographic evidence of the building in the 1930s does exist and more info is available here, thanks to Save Bloomsbury, which also highlights that the building has been under threat since at least 2020. I am rather frustrated that I have only discovered all this now as having walked past the front of the building many times these past few years I hadn't noticed anything on the building declaring the plans. See here for December 2021 where, despite objections already being raised, there are no signs of change. wouldn't have seen this having researched the building in 2019 and not being able to lead walking tours during Lockdown. 

So, what's replacing it? Brace yourself... see last pic, below, for an artist's impression – there's plenty more across the web here.  

I'm thinking a 90 year lease was due to expire? The coach station building has been there for over eight decades and the external structure has always looked, to me, to be in very good condition. And I always admired how it had been sympathetically designed to fit in with the Georgian buildings that would have then stood at either side. I am not sure we can say the same of the high-rise proposal that will replace it which I very much doubt will be standing there for a similar time period. 

Oh and one more thing, M@ the Londonist guru points out that Oasis filmed Supersonic on the roof of the coach station – it has some great views of the surrounding area inc KX station. See here. 

This last pic sourced from here – akt-uk are the structural engineers working on the new build.

A new architectural style in Spitalfields, E1 - Revivialist Pasticheism

Walking from Aldgate to Old Street last weekend via Spitalfields market, I cut across Wentworth Street and into Toynbee Street. Ahead of me, on the right, I saw an Art Deco style building. I stopped in my tracks – this definitely wasn't there a few years ago and I recalled a ramshackle mess of low-level buildings along that north side, covered in posters and graffiti, as shown below, top left, and here on retrospective streetview. This new building is quite clearly a modern take on the late 1930's style of architecture complete with geometric motifs. Indeed, on the front of it proudy shows 2021. How bizarre.

I contunued along the street to find more pastiche structures in the form of late Georgian workshops, and Victorian warehouses, all with strangely colourful windows frames, and another 1930s-style building in grey tones at the far end. 

I went to investigate the other side of the block in Commercial Street and found that a Jazz Age façade now replaces some derelict low level buildings at the rear/front of the black-tiled building in Toynbee Street. 

What is going on here? If these were reconstructions of the buildings previously demolished here I'd kind of understand the point of it. But that's clearly not the case. This appears to be some kind of showcase of the kinds of buildings you might have found in the area sometime in the past. A bit touristy and cheesy in my view. Sort of like the set of a cartoon movie.

Is it that today's architects run out of new ideas?

What do you think? Do you have any further info?

Next week I will post about two lost Art Deco gems in this area.

Construction Time Again – rebuilding Central London

Travelling through Central London recently, admiring the view from the top deck of a bus, I couldn't help but notice the huge redevelopments are happening at the moment and how many gaping great holes there are in the ground. Covid-19 does not appear to have restricted the construction industry.

For instance, at New Oxford Street, just east of Centrepoint, there is a big whole where this has been demolished – there is now a completely clear view of Renzo's horrible coloured towers.

Turning the corner into Charing Cross Road, the new build around Tottenham Court Road station continues. Chunky great glass things replace the much-missed Astoria Theatre (which was my favourite live music venue) and other buildings and small streets in the vicinity. The huge glasshouse entrances to TottCtRd station still look out of place and out of alignment with their tall neighbour and it's evident that the glass within them has yet to be cleaned. Such a silly design – how could you clean them anyway?  Why do these things need to be so tall and ugly? Consider  and compare the flamboyant yet understed Metro entrances in Paris.

Keep travelling with me here. Buildings between Centrepoint and Denmark Place have evolved considerably of late. Denmark Street as a centre for live music has diminished considerably and Tin Pan Alley is no more. Opposite, on the corner of Manette Street, the pink-faced replacement for the Foyles building looks to be almost complete. Hurrah, at least, for the elegant beauty of the 1930s Central School of Art, now Foyles new home.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against change, I like to see the patchwork of history – all this knock down and replace is nothing new. Leases expire, buildings become unfit for purpose etc and need to be replaced. The Victorians, and the Georgians before them, rebuilt whole streets and, just pre-WWII there was another construction boom, but the amount of change happening at the moment in Central London is, for me, quite shocking. 

And so we continue to Cambridge Circus and turn right into Shaftesbury Avenue. All looks to be as was until crash bang boom, the whole of the block behind Piccadilly's iconic advertising hoardings has been reduced to just that – an almost two-dimensional sign:

And, so, over into Piccadilly itself. Nothing to report until we get to the Ritz. There is a big development with Caffe Nero on the corner here is covered in plastic, I know not why, and then further along at the corner of Half Moon Street the red brick building's façade is all that remains. Though, as you can see from this older streetview there have been hoardings around it since at least 2008; it had been in a poor state for decades.

I decided after that to just look left at the park

It's just occured to me that I have efffectively taken you on a free virtual tour!

Battersea Power Station – an update on the renovations

The whole riverside stretch between Battersea Bridge and 'Vauxhall Village' is today a swathe of new build, the old power station being only one of a few old buildings left standing in the area. A while back I wrote a provoacative piece suggesting they should pull the thing down. After all, if this building is so revered how come it was left open to the elements as a ruin for decades?! I followed up my thoughts in 2013 and then again in 2014. Why has this building become the famous one when so may like it were demolished completely? Consider, for instance, that the Lots Road Power Station has been empty for decades. Does this have anything to do with popluar culture? Pink Floyd? Or is it that the site was so huge that no-one was prepared or could afford to take it on?

A few weeks ago on one of those lovely bright, crisp, sunny, winter days, I had an urge to walk along the river from Battersea to Waterloo* and this afforded me the opportunity to have a nose in at the what's happening. It was a glorious day and everthing looked marvellous. And there were hardly any people about. And it was quiet. And I like it like that.

I followed the Thames Path into the main area of new build at the side of the railway arches filled with restauarants and food outlets but closed for business due to Coronavirus. Just a few people about, walking their dogs and enjoying the sunshine. I wandered around for over an hour and exited the site via Nine Elms Road where this old electrictity box sits.

Do go and have a wander through yourself. There is one-way pedestrian route through the site. Bear in mind that there are still a lot of buildings yet to be started and these will, as I mentioned in my earlier piece, obliterate the view from the Wandsworth side. So I'd advise you get there while the main building is still visible.

A nice addition is the old coaling jetty which has been tranformed into a decked garden complete with seats and flowers and excellent views, but at the moment it's only one way in and the same way out again. I hope that this will be connected to the Thames Path in due course. Note the dockers' mistresses along the edge the looking like topless sunbathers who have got a bit burnt. More here.

Adjacent to the jetty they've installed lots of low level planting and strange triangular raised ponds which offer interesting reflections of the power station. The broken reflections in the new glass buildings are also intriguing. The zig-zag walkways are a bit annoying though. I am fairly sure that people will very quickly make desire paths to cut off the pointy corners.

Sun Street and The Flying Horse

Demolition and reconstruction. Will it never end?

And this I saw it coming for years....

Sun Street runs behind the Broadgate complex just north of near Liverpool Street. Since early 2009 I have been keeping an eye on this terrace.
A couple of weeks ago I took a detour and was sad, but not surprised, to find that the whole Georgian terrace has been demolished but the The Flying Horse, a Victorian era public house, remains in business on the corner which, I assume, will soon be given scrub-up and a homogenised makeover as per the Three Crowns just north of Old Street Roundabout which, too, has been saved like a little historic jewel embedded into a modern glass bock.

Could someone please explain to me the logic and rationale here?
I am not suggesting we keep everything but jeez, this area is fast becoming as glassy as the Isle of Dogs or Nine Elms. I think, this leaves only Worship Street and Leonard Street with any pre-1880 buildings.

Flying Horse, Sun Street, March 2009

Flying Horse, Sun Street, June 2018

Sun Street, Georgian terrace, March 2009

Sun Street, March 2009

Kings Cross ghostsigns and Pentonville Road

Last year I wrote about the Daily Express sign at Willesden and within that I alluded to signs for the Daily News.... Well, I believe I have found another one near The Poor School at Kings Cross.

Pentonville Road, Kings Cross

Shown above are three pics of what remains of a sign that would have had letters about 10ft tall. The first word is definitely 'DAILY'. The word underneath starts with an 'N' and I am pretty sure it would have been 'NEWS'. I'd be keen to find additional archive history and images about this area.
The fourth picture shows an attractive building on the end of a two-storey terrace between Penton Street and Hermes Street on Pentonville Road (this stretch features in the link above) – I have been watching this site to see what happens to these lovely two-storey because other swathes of nearby land are being developed as I write this.

Kings Cross Quarter with two artist impressions of the view and gardens 

For instance Regal Homes are in the process of creating "Kings Cross Quarter" (which quarter? top left/bottom right? What does this MEAN?!) between Cynthia Street and Rodney Street.
The fancy hoardings around the exterior of this development feature swanky letters and images that show views that will be available from probably only a quarter (ha ha, see what I did there?!) of the 118 properties within, a concierge reception area and an "exquisite private landscaped garden" (their words, not mine – check the pic above – so exquisite!). On the developer's selling site it says the apartments will be "created with luxury and functionality... highest quality finishes... Sumptuous and welcoming... perfectly designed". It's beyond me how an empty room devoid of furniture and furnishings can be luxurious or sumptuous. And the exterior will beige and bland. It looks like a clip-together child's toy to me. Beige. What's with all this beige when so many other colours are available?
And whilst I am on the subject of new build, what's going on with all this clip-on fake faded bricks that's appearing like some kind of disease? OK, so they are trying to keep the old brick 'feel' but couldn't they have manufactured them with interlocking 'teeth' edges so that they don't end up with all those straight vertical joins where the panels abut?
Anyway, enough of that... back to ghostsigns... to Kings Cross proper, by which I mean the junction in front of the station and, specifically, the end of Gray's Inn Road.

Gray's Inn Road, Kings Cross

We all know the sign for Scales, Weights & Weighing Machines above 319-321 (formerly 37 Chichester Place), but next time you are passing do stop and look closer at the rest of the terrace to the right of that and see that there are hints of letters peeping through here and there. After all, why would all those places be covered in paint if not to cover up something?
It's only a matter of time before more is revealed. Fingers crossed this happens before the decorators get twitchy.   Part of the painted sign on the 323 is visible here. I need to find some more reference on this to confirm my hunch. The Ladykillers original film features this junction and might throw some light on the matter.

The Fabric of Smithfield

The area has changed so much and so quickly. I recall going to a venue on Charterhouse Street for a friend's birthday party one Saturday evening in 1996. I can't remember the name of the place – I went there quite a few times – it had a restaurant and bar on ground floor and a dance floor in the basement. We used to enjoy being in an area of London so close to so many things yet quiet and unknown by so many – it felt like we were in on something only the locals and the market traders knew anything about. But that soon changed with the arrival of Fabric in 1999 and very quickly the buildings around the market changed to cater for the change in clientele and the shift in the meat market trade.
There are still some lovely old buildings in the area. Look up and around you – there's lots to see.

Charterhouse Street – Top: Cold Storage, a Fabric lion and a ram at 79-83 with more from that building on the second row. 

Just along from the Italianate Cold Storage building on Charterhouse Street and next door to Fabric is the 1930s Meat Inspector's Office built in Portland stone with lovely reliefs of cattle and sheep with rams heads at street level.

Lindsey Street and Long Lane. Both buildings demolished for Crossrail.

Crossrail has demolished all the buildings in Lindsey Street along the Western side of the market. Nothing Crossrail erects here will ever compare to the charm of the exterior of Edmund Martin's tripe shop or the Art Deco exuberance of Saville House that used to sit on the corner of Long Lane. It's criminal that this could not have been incorporated into Crossrail's designs.
Moving round into Long Lane itself, the deco building at 51-52 (first pic below) is still there but at the time of writing is covered in scaffold and nettings.

Evans & Witt are still trade at No.58 (phew!). The Barley Mow at No.50 ceased trading as a pub in 2006 though the building and the old pub name at the top still remains.

The pics above were taken in Sept2016 of the Farringdon end of Charterhouse Street. The poultry market looking as if it's actually being used, though the caging/fencing belies that. Hart's still had it sign up for last Christmas' auction. I had assumed that this had been the last one and the sign had just been there ever since as a sad reminder. However, I just checked and can report they had the auction as usual last month. So all is not lost. The PLA building still stands as imposing as the day it was built there to keep an eye on imports and exports to/from the market.
For info on Smithfield Market and the immediate area click here.

I wrote a few months ago about the closure of two pubs in the Smithfield area. I also noticed that in a fond piece written by Giles Coren about A. A. Gill in the Saturday Times magazine a week after Gill died he was pictured in The Hope, one of the pubs mentioned above. It seemed a strange ironic choice of image to me.

Bernard Morgan House, Golden Lane Estate, Barbican

After delivering some of my cards to Exhibit on Goswell Road last month, I went for a walk around the Barbican complex and then to the Golden Lane Estate.
The marvellously colourful tiled entrance of Bernard Morgan House caught my eye:

Wonderful colors and images

Walking anti-clockwise around the building in to Golden Lane itself I noticed that all was not well; the garden area was in a terrible state and plants had been allowed to climb up the building. It was obvious that no one was living there now.

Taking the concept of urban meadows to a new level

 And then I spotted the demolition signs attached to the building.

The cobbled ramp that leads from the street, more fab tiles on the northern end of the building and, at the rear, specific signs of how the prep for demolition was underway

These pics were taken a month ago. The building may have gone completely by now. I know it's not a pretty structure but the whole of the Golden Lane Estate was constructed in the 1950s to bring social/affordable housing in a harmonious open plan environment to this area of London. It seems a shame that this building has not stood the test of time like so many similar structures in the area.
What will happen to the tiles? Can I have them please...?

Swain's Lane, Highgate West Hill, development of site

I have for many years been keeping my eye on the old garages at the corner of Swain's Lane on Highgate West Hill. It always pleased me that this sinuous low-rise 1930s building was still intact especially in the light of all the high rise apartments and modern shopping centres going up all around us.

The garages in 2008 – one expects a Bugatti to appear any minute

In August 2014 the plans for redevelopment of this site were published and businesses within the parade moved out. One lovely cafe, Forks & Corks moved to Archway but has had to close for a while during building works.
But nothing seems to have happened since then. It all looks a bit sad.
On a sunny day last month I took a few snaps for an update:

A hand car wash company was still trading at the rear of the garages. As the plans for redevelopment show, these garages will soon be converted into shops and cafes.

On the curved corner end a lovely old sign for an Ekcovision TV shop has been revealed

The Swain's Lane side of the terrace is all boarded up. I am not sure about the relevance of Liz Taylor's decorating skills; it looks like she is advertising Wall's ice cream.

The Olympian Way, Greenwich, continued

Ok, so where was I?
We'd given up on the foreshore, walked around the O2, seen some dodgy art and attempted to understand the confusing development 'plans' for the area.
And so we walked westwards to Greenwich proper along the Olympian Way which is basically The Thames Path renamed. The environment changed as we walked. It feels like a war-torn wasteland near the O2. Then there are demolition and construction sites, holding areas for building materials,  various unkempt buildings, abandoned jetties and metal structures once used by lost-gone companies.
West of the golf driving range and the concrete works trees and greenery become abundant, though I suspect that the natural world is not going to be there for much longer... modern gated developments are closing in fast.

Just some nice patterns that I noticed on various walls and fences near the cement works.

The river meets the land near Morden Wharf Road. the willow trees and mossy banks are particularly lovely. And, dotted along the water's edge, we spotted some amusing signs in a seaside-style that hint at what we have now and what's to come; shown here are 'Beauty' and 'Foreshore forearmed'.

And this is what's coming... A Cruise Port. Does this mean lots of big liners docking here spilling out customers/visitors/residents by the day? The big pic at the top is an artist's impression on the blue hoardings that create a creepy tunnel for much of this stretch of path.  And, coming soon, a "New Release of River fronting Apartments". Note either a punctuation error (I suggest a hyphen is missing to make River-fronting and that would explain why only one word starts with a lower case letter), or this is written by someone who can't speak English properly. Either way, Barratt, who are the developers should have checked the sign before it went up. Attention to detail lacking – I wonder if this an omen for the kind of sub-standard buildings we might expect to see here? As you can see from the middle bottom pic, work has started. The last pic shows the forecourt/garden area outside the development sales office. Perhaps they'll set out more of these non-indigenous spiral trees in cubes to tie in with the high-rise homogeneous Lego-like cube homes?

 My final post about this area is yet to come... expect a much lighter subject matter (phew!).

Why is the UK still knocking down historic cinemas?

That's the heading on this article from BBC News.
Well I don't know.
Of the London cinemas that remain but are no longer used for their orginal purpose many have been gutted and used for other things. The only ones that seem to have retained their interiors are now being used as churches or pubs. Many others are now converted into shops or other businesses and oly hints of their once sparkling past can be seen on the street-facing façades.

Top: Essex Rd, Finsbury Park, Leyton
Middle: Edgware Rd, Acton, Holloway
Bottom: Stratford, Westbourne Grove, Hoxton

Top: Lea Bridge Rd, Bruce Grove, Bethnal Green
Middle: Dalston, Oval, Willesden
Bottom: Walthamstow, Kilburn, Camden

Many more architecturally interesting London cinemas have been reduced to rubble over the decades, mostly since the 1970s. And, to me, it just beggars belief that the developers didn't at least retain the ornate façades or re-use some of the lovely bricks and tiles. (Note to self: Rein it in Jane, you about to start ranting about modern glass architecture with a projected lifespan of 15 years...whoa!)
Seeing as everything these days, films, music, etc., is available as downloads, or on demand, for how long will the few magnificent palaces that remain, some of which I show below, still stand?

Top: Shaftesbury Ave, Dalston, Holloway
Bottom: Brixton, Leicester Square x2

My two favourite cinemas used to sit adjacent to each other in Camden. 

The Parkway was a lovely old Art Deco cinema with a red dralon seats and just two screens. I particularly recall seeing Oliver Stone's JFK on the big screen there in 1991 whilst munching on a box of Maltesers. The small above the ticket office showed independent films and there was a piano on the first floor next to the confectionery and drinks counter and very often someone was tinkling the ivories before the film began. I am pretty sure that I read that John Boorman used the cinema when filming parts of Hope and Glory. There is a great scene when the lad who is the lead in the film can be seen leaning forward in the first row of the circle transfixed by the film he is watching.

The cinema was gutted and modernised just prior to the last offensive about saving our old cinemas. Really bad timing and such a sad loss. 

The Camden Plaza around the corner, opposite the tube station, showed art house films and was simpler inside, but I recall the small entrance lobby/ticket hall was wood panelled, almost Tudor in design. At one point the cinema formed part of the Gaumont chain (later Odeon) and a pic of the faded sign on the side of the building is shown below.

It's just occurred to me that many long gone cinemas gave their names to the junction on which they sat* as in the case of The Savoy Cinema in Acton (Savoy Circus). I used to drive past it often in the late 1990s and I just took it for granted. Then hoardings went up around it and very soon there was a big empty space. It stood empty like a barren wasteland for years. Below are some comparison pics. Amazingly I cannot find any older pics than these from 1971.

Top left approx mid 80s. Top right: late 90s I think (note the blocked up doors)
Bottom: 2009 and the plans for the site today

Lots of great pics and info about demolished London cinemas can be found here – click the tabs under the map to see other categories.

*I have often wondered whether there was a cinema called The Apex at Apex Corner. I have so far drawn a blank about where this name come from. Or possibly there was a shop? Whatever it was, it's now long gone. Londonist wrote a piece about the naming of road junctions a while back... does anyone out there have any more info?

College Street and Little Green Street, NW5

Tucked away parallel to Highgate Road, between Kentish Town and Highgate, behind The Vine public house, is a lovely little footpath called College Lane.
Starting at College Yard it runs northwards past pretty little workers' cottages where it's hard to believe that a bus route is a stone's throw away.

Walking northwards from Somerset Road (top left)

The path then continues through a foot tunnel under the railway line and eventually becomes Grove End and then Grove Terrace.

Before the tunnel is the junction of Little Green Street:

With just eight houses on one side and two on the other, all of which were built in 1780 and are Grade II listed, it harks back to a bygone age of carts and flat caps. The street was the inspiration, and featured briefly in the video, for The Kinks' Dead End Street*. More recently the road was threatened with demolition in order to create a gated driveway for 30 new properties being built at the rear. Read more about that evil plan here. And here for a 2012 update.

* which surely inspired this great video by Oasis

St James's Market, Piccadilly, SW1

Last week I was wandering down towards Waterloo Place from Piccadilly and noticed that the area that once was St James's Market is surrounded by hoardings and in the process of being renovated.

So I looked up The Crowne Estate's site hoping to find that a street market might be included in the plans. Nope. 

However, this pdf (from the Useful Docs section) includes some interesting information about the plans plus some history of the site. 

For your delectation I am here including the lovely pics and historical info that can be found on page 7.

Job done

Centrepoint

I have always liked Centrepoint. In comparison to all the plain sheets of glass to be found everywhere else (or Renzo Piano's hideous hi-rise Toytown just around the corner), this tall tower is distinctive and, therefore a true icon of its age (just like me cos we were both born in the early 1960s!).
The 33-floor tower was a controversial topic from the day it was built. At 385 ft high it was tallest building for miles. For many decades it stood mostly empty.
The fountains stopped gushing in about the 90's, I think, and their mosaic'd pool sat empty and unloved until Crossrail came in and bulldozed the area around the tower, along with a lot of other much-missed buildings (in particular The Astoria boo hoo), to make way for a new modern Tottenham Court station and piazza. For this we can assume bland and flat with and square corners  – faster to build, see.

At I write this Centrepoint is being converted into 'luxury' apartments costing approx £3million a pop. It is clothed in a kind of trompe l'oeil rain mac.
This all seems a bit at odds with this other Centrepoint.

Archway Blues and Greens

Archway has suffered from bad press. And more here.

A couple of weeks ago I took a couple of colourful snaps

Archway Tower... under renovation

The Co-operative Store, Junction Road

That's it!

Knightsbridge observations

Just east of Harvey Nicks and the Park Tower Knightsbridge Hotel, occupying a prime bit of real estate facing Hyde Park, is an ornate Victorian parade that stretches between William Street and Wilton Place.

Last week I noticed that the shop windows at street level are boarded up.
The 18 shops along there included a branch of Spaghetti House which had been there for 46 years.
The landlord, Cheval Property Management, has plans to redevelop the site although I can see nothing about it on their website.
I am not sure who or what occupies the upper levels and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the façade is retained, cleaned and reused. But I rather suspect that demolition of this impressively decorated terrace with its lovely mouldings and unusual windows, might be on the cards. I hope I am wrong.