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Somers Town | |
---|---|
Location within Greater London | |
OS grid reference | TQ295825 |
London borough | |
Ceremonial county | Greater London |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | LONDON |
Postcode district | NW1 |
Dialling code | 020 |
Police | Metropolitan |
Fire | London |
Ambulance | London |
UK Parliament | |
London Assembly | |
Somers Town is an inner-city district in North West London. It has been strongly influenced by the three mainline north London railway termini: Euston (1838), St Pancras (1868) and King's Cross (1852), together with the Midland Railway Somers Town Goods Depot (1887) next to St Pancras, where the British Library now stands. It was named after Charles Cocks, 1st Baron Somers (1725–1806). [1] [2] The area was originally granted by William III to John Somers (1651–1716), Lord Chancellor and Baron Somers of Evesham. [3]
Historically, the name "Somers Town" was used for the larger triangular area between the Pancras, Hampstead, and Euston Roads, [1] but it is now taken to mean the rough rectangle centred on Chalton Street and bounded by Pancras Road, Euston Road, Eversholt Street, Crowndale Road, and the railway approaches to St Pancras station. Somers Town was originally within the medieval Parish of St Pancras, Middlesex, which in 1900 became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras. In 1965 the Borough of St Pancras was abolished and its area became part of the London Borough of Camden. [4] [5]
St Pancras Old Church is believed by many to be one of the oldest Christian sites in England. The churchyard remains consecrated but is managed by Camden Council as a park. It holds many literary associations, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Hardy, as well as memorials to dignitaries, including the remarkable tomb of architect Sir John Soane.
In the mid 1750s the New Road was established to bypass the congestion of London; Somers Town lay immediately north of this east–west toll road. In 1784, the first housing was built at the Polygon amid fields, brick works and market gardens on the northern fringes of London. Mary Wollstonecraft, writer, philosopher and feminist, lived there with her husband William Godwin, and died there in 1797 after giving birth to the future Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein . The area appears to have appealed to middle-class people fleeing the French Revolution. The site of the Polygon is now occupied by a block of council flats called Oakshott Court, which features a commemorative plaque for Wollstonecraft.
St Mary's Church opened near the Polygon in 1827 and is now the parish church. [6] In 1830 the first on-duty fatality for the newly founded Metropolitan Police occurred when PC Joseph Grantham was kicked to death while trying to break up a street fight in Smiths Place, Somers Town. [7] The Polygon deteriorated socially as the surrounding land was subsequently sold off in smaller lots for cheaper housing, especially after the start of construction in the 1830s of the railway lines into Euston, St Pancras and King's Cross. In this period the area housed a large transient population of labourers and the population density of the area soared.
When St Luke's Church, near King's Cross, was demolished to make way for the construction of the Midland Railway's St Pancras station and its Midland Grand Hotel, the estimated 12,000 inhabitants of Somers Town at that time were deprived of that place of worship, as the church building was re-erected in Kentish Town, though St Mary's remained and St Matthew's Oakley Square was added in 1856. [8] In 1868 the lace merchant and philanthropist George Moore funded a new church, known as Christ Church and an associated school in Chalton Street with an entrance in Ossulston Street. The school accommodated about 600 children. Christ Church and the adjacent school were destroyed in a World War II bombing raid and no trace remains today, the site being occupied by a children's play area and sports court, with its parish transferred to Old Saint Pancras Church. By the late 19th century most of the houses in the Polygon were in multiple occupation, and overcrowding was severe with whole families sometimes living in one room, as confirmed by the social surveys of Charles Booth and Irene Barclay.
Charles Dickens lived in the Polygon briefly as a child and knew the area well. The Polygon, where he once lived, appears in Chapter 52 of The Pickwick Papers (1836), when Mr Pickwick's solicitor's clerk, arriving at Gray's Inn just before ten o'clock, says he heard the clocks strike half past nine as he walked through Somers Town: "It went the half hour as I came through The Polygon." The building makes its appearance again in Bleak House (1852), when it served as the home of Harold Skimpole. [9] In David Copperfield (1850), Johnson (now Cranleigh) Street was the thoroughfare near the Royal Veterinary College, Camden Town, where the Micawbers lived, when Traddles, David Copperfield's friend and schoolfellow, was their lodger. [10]
In A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Roger Cly, the Old Bailey informant, was buried in Old St Pancras Churchyard. The funeral over, later that night Jerry Cruncher and his companions went "fishing" (body snatching), trying unsuccessfully to 'resurrect' Cly. [11] Robert Blincoe (1792–1860), on whose life story Oliver Twist (1838) may be based, was a child inmate at the St Pancras Workhouse. A central character in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend (1865) is Nicodemus Boffin, nicknamed 'The Golden Dustman' because of the wealth he inherited from his old employer John Harmon, who had made his fortune as a dust contractor at Somers Town. [12]
An infirmary was added to the St Pancras Workhouse, adjacent to St Pancras Old Church in 1848, later becoming the St Pancras Hospital, the only hospital in the area not to have closed since 1980. Its current site includes buildings previously used by the Workhouse. St Mary's Dispensary (later the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital) opened at 144 Euston Road in 1866, followed by the National Temperance Hospital at 110-112 Hampstead Road in 1873.
Improvement of the slum housing conditions, amongst the worst in the capital, was first undertaken by St Pancras Borough Council in 1906 at Goldington Buildings, at the junction of Pancras Road and Royal College Street, and continued on a larger scale by the St Pancras House Improvement Society (subsequently the St Pancras & Humanist Housing Association, the present owner of Goldington Buildings) which was established in 1924. Its founders were Church of England priest Father Basil Jellicoe and Irene Barclay, the first woman in Britain to qualify as a chartered surveyor. The Society's Sidney Street and Drummond Street estates incorporated sculpture panels of Doultonware designed by Gilbert Bayes and ornamental finials for the washing line posts designed by the same artist: these are now mostly destroyed or replaced with replicas. [13]
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases moved onto the St Pancras Hospital site in 1948. Further social housing was built by the London County Council, which began construction of the Ossulston Estate in 1927. There remains a small number of older Grade 2 listed properties, mostly Georgian terraced houses. During the early 1970s the neighborhood comprising Greater London Council-owned housing in Charrington, Penryn, Platt and Medburn Streets was a centre for the squatting movement. [14]
In the 1980s, some council tenants took advantage of the 'right to buy' scheme and bought their homes at a substantial discount. Later they moved away from the area. The consequence was an influx of young semi-professional people, resulting in a changing population. Somers Town experienced ethnic tension between whites and Bengalis in the early 1990s, climaxing in the murder of Richard Everitt in 1994. [15] [16] Major construction work along the eastern side of Somers Town was completed in 2008, to allow for the Eurostar trains to arrive at the refurbished St Pancras station. This involved the excavation of part of the St Pancras Old Churchyard, the human remains being re-interred at St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley. [17]
Land at Brill Place, previously earmarked for later phases of the British Library development, became available when the library expansion was cancelled and was used as site offices for the High Speed 1 terminal development and partly to allow for excavation of a tunnel for the new Thameslink station. It was then acquired as the site for the Francis Crick Institute (formerly the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation), a major medical research institute established by a partnership of Cancer Research UK, Imperial College London, King's College London, the Medical Research Council, University College London (UCL) and the Wellcome Trust. [18] [19]
A number of significant films have been set in Somers Town: the 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers with Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers; Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa of 1986, featuring Bob Hoskins; Mike Leigh's 1988 film High Hopes; Anthony Minghella's 2006 romantic drama Breaking and Entering starring Jude Law and Juliette Binoche; and in 2008 Shane Meadows's Somers Town, which was filmed almost entirely in and around Phoenix Court, a low-rise council property in Purchese Street. [20] The area is mentioned in the Pogues song 'Transmetropolitan', the first song written by the band, who used to live nearby in St Pancras. [21]
Somers Town has a flourishing street market, held in Chalton Street, Wednesday to Friday. [22] The START (Somers Town Art) Festival of Cultures is held on the second Saturday in July, on the site of the market. It is the biggest street festival in the Camden borough and attracts about 10,000 people, bringing together the area's diverse cultural communities. [23]
All the area's hospitals have closed since 1980, apart from St Pancras Hospital, whose large red brick building fronting the complex to the north of St Pancras Gardens is still residential, chiefly as a rehabilitation hospital for the elderly. Other buildings house the headquarters of Camden NHS Primary Care Trust. It also accommodates parts of Islington Primary Care Trust, the Huntley Centre (a mental health unit) and St Pancras Coroner's Court.
There are two secondary schools in the area, the Roman Catholic co-educational Maria Fidelis Convent School FCJ in Phoenix Road, and the state Regent High School in Charrington Street. Regent High School was established in 1877 and has gone through several name changes, more recently as Sir William Collins Secondary School, then as South Camden Community School. Somers Town Community Sports Centre was built on part of the school playground. The building is leased to a charitable trust that is jointly managed by the school and UCL (UCL is based a few hundred metres to the south of Euston Road and is a major employer of local residents). It is used for 17% of available hours by UCLU's sports teams for training and home matches and for recreational sport by UCL students. As part of Building Schools for the Future plans to expand the school, it is probable that the sports centre will be reintegrated back into the school campus.
There are also three primary schools: Edith Neville (state), St Aloysius (state-aided Catholic) and St Mary and St Pancras (state-aided Church of England). The latter has been built beneath Somerset Court, four floors of university student accommodation units. The children's charity Scene & Heard is also based in Somers Town. It offers a unique mentoring project that partners the inner-city children of Somers Town with volunteer theatre professionals, providing each child who participates with quality one-on-one adult attention and an experience of personal success through the process of writing and performing plays.
The nearest London Underground stations are Mornington Crescent, Euston and King's Cross St Pancras. National Rail services operate from the nearby London King's Cross, London St Pancras and London Euston stations. St Pancras International is the terminus for Eurostar services and was the London terminus for the Javelin fast train service to London Olympic Park. [24]
Modern housing estates in Somers Town include:
This is a list of the etymology of Somers Town streets.
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest museum in the United Kingdom, and several educational institutions, including University College London and a number of other colleges and institutes of the University of London as well as its central headquarters, the New College of the Humanities, the University of Law, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the British Medical Association and many others. Bloomsbury is an intellectual and literary hub for London, as home of world-known Bloomsbury Publishing, publishers of the Harry Potter series, and namesake of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of British intellectuals which included author Virginia Woolf, biographer Lytton Strachey, and economist John Maynard Keynes.
Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town. Less than four miles north of central London, Kentish Town has good transport connections and is situated close to the open spaces of Hampstead Heath.
St Pancras is a district in central London. It was originally a medieval ancient parish and subsequently became a metropolitan borough. The metropolitan borough then merged with neighbouring boroughs and the area it covered now forms around half of the modern London Borough of Camden. The area of the parish and borough includes the sub-districts of Camden Town, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, Somers Town, King's Cross, Chalk Farm, Dartmouth Park, the core area of Fitzrovia, and a part of Highgate.
King's Cross is a district on either side of Euston Road, in north London, England, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of Charing Cross. It is bordered by Barnsbury to the north, Clerkenwell and Islington to the east, Holborn to the south and Euston to the west. It is served by two major rail termini, St Pancras and King's Cross. King's Cross station is the terminus of one of the major rail routes between London and the North.
Camden Town, often shortened to Camden, is an area in the London Borough of Camden, around 2.5 miles (4.1 km) north-northwest of Charing Cross. Historically in Middlesex, it is identified in the London Plan as one of 34 major centres in Greater London.
Euston Road is a road in Central London that runs from Marylebone Road to King's Cross. The route is part of the London Inner Ring Road and forms part of the London congestion charge zone boundary. It is named after Euston Hall, the family seat of the Dukes of Grafton, who had become major property owners in the area during the mid-19th century.
Fitzrovia is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urbanised in the 18th century. Its name was coined in the late 1930s by Tom Driberg.
Euston Square is a large square in the London Borough of Camden in Central London. It lies on Euston Road, and Euston railway station and Euston bus station are on its northernmost side. Although “Euston Square” strictly refers to the square, in day to day use the name is often used to refer to Euston Square tube station, whose entrance is at the junction of Euston Road and North Gower Street. The southern half of the square was built over in the 1920s, leaving Euston Square Gardens on the north side in front of Euston station.
St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church on Pancras Road, Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden. Somers Town is an area of the ancient parish and later Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras.
St Mary's Church is a Church of England church on Eversholt Street in Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden.
Camden Town Hall, known as St Pancras Town Hall until 1965, is the headquarters of Camden London Borough Council. The main entrance is in Judd street with its northern elevation extending along Euston Road, opposite the main front of St Pancras railway station. It has been Grade II listed since 1996.
The A400 road is an A road in London that runs from Charing Cross to Archway in North London. It passes some of London's most famous landmarks.
Queen's Crescent Market is an outdoor street market held every Thursday and Saturday on Queen's Crescent in Kentish Town, Camden between the junction with Malden Road in the West and the junction with Grafton Road in the East. Licences to trade are issued by Camden London Borough Council.
King's Cross is a ward of the London borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. The ward has existed since the creation of the borough on 1 April 1965 and was first used in the 1964 elections. The population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 11,843. In 2018, the ward had an electorate of 7,274. The Boundary Commission projects the electorate to rise to 8,459 in 2025.
The London Borough of Camden was created in 1965 from the former area of the metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St Pancras, which had formed part of the County of London. The borough was named after Camden Town, which had gained its name from Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden in 1795. Since the 17th century, many famous people have lived in its various districts and neighbourhoods.
The London Borough of Camden is a London borough in Inner London, England. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies 1.4 mi (2.3 km) north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 and includes the former Central London borough of Holborn, and St Pancras and Hampstead.
Cleveland Street in central London runs north to south from Euston Road (A501) to the junction of Mortimer Street and Goodge Street. It lies within Fitzrovia, in the W1 post code area. Cleveland Street also runs along part of the border between Bloomsbury (ward) which is located in London Borough of Camden, and West End (ward) and Marylebone High Street (ward) in the City of Westminster. In the 17th century, the way was known as the Green Lane, when the area was still rural, or Wrastling Lane, after a nearby amphitheatre for boxing and wrestling.
The Ossulston Estate is a multi-storey council estate built by the London County Council on Chalton Street in Somers Town between 1927 and 1931. It was unusual at the time both in its inner-city location and in its modernist design, and all the original parts of the estate are now Grade II listed buildings.
Chalton Street Market is a street market in Camden, North London.
Chalton Street is a street in the Somers Town neighbourhood of London, England. Chalton Street is over a kilometre long and stretches from Euston Road to almost Camden Town, before taking a hard right turn and terminating at St Pancras Hospital.