“The next station is Caledonian Road,” is one of the
announcements I hear every day as I trundle into work on the Piccadilly Line.
Then a few minutes later the doors open so a few people can get out and others
get on. And in no time at all we are off again, with most passengers none the
wiser as to what is going on above ground.
But as tonight’s episode of the excellent Secret History of
Our Streets series (see my earlier blog for my take on episode one) revealed
Caledonian Road, which stretches for a mile and a half north of King’s Cross
station, really is a fascinating somewhere I want to spend more time exploring.
Some would argue that today the area is grubby, unloved and generally a “shit
hole”, but as will become clear this is not a view held by all. Many people
there seem happy, like those who enjoy sing alongs with Elvis tribute acts at
the Prince of Wales pub.
Right from when it was established in the first decades of
the 1800s Caledonian Road has largely been lived on by the working people. It’s
ironic because the neighbouring Thornhill Estate, built speculatively a little
earlier by the wealthy George Thornhill, was, and is today, very upmarket with
the highlight being the lovely Thornhill Square. For Caledonian Road by
contrast, tonight’s BBC programme used the late Victorian social explorer Charles
Booth’s poverty map to show how 125 years ago it really was a depressing, tatty
and generally an “undesirable address”.
When the King’s Cross railway station was opened, cheap
housing sprung up for railway workers and the area became rundown. Prostitutes
took advantage of the inflow of passengers and operated in large numbers on
street corners. The area also gained a reputation for the fencing of stolen
goods. And then then opening of a cattle market meant the streets were clogged
up with smelly animals as they were moved from King’s Cross to the slaughter
house.
Over the years, by some accounts, the area deteriorated
further still as waves of newcomers moved into bedsits. When in 1970 the police
station was besieged by 100 black youths Islington council felt that enough was
enough and that the solution was to knock down rows of perfectly decent terraced
houses.
As was the case in other parts of London and indeed
elsewhere in the UK the 1970s tower blocks to replace the properties did
nothing to resolve the problems – if anything anti-social behaviour increased.
Then, as if the area hadn’t suffered enough already, the recession in the 1980s
hit the area hard with many shops boarded up.
Yet what I took from the programme tonight is that in spite
of its problems many members of the community have bonded together well to
maintain Caledonian Road’s unique character. In contrast to the grime and crime,
there were people who had grown up in the area interviewed on camera saying that
you could leave your door open and not worry about people stealing valuables.
And neighbours’ children happily played with each other, whatever their ethnic
group.
Long-standing residents fought to make Caledonian Road and
its surroundings a nicer place to live. They successfully campaigned for a
tatty open air car park to be turned into a pretty communal garden. Then they
famously fought off plans in the 1990s for properties to be pulled down so that
the Channel Tunnel lines could be brought into King’s Cross. And later they
beat off British Rail’s masterplan large parts of the area to be demolished in
order to create a residential and commercial area.
Could change now be coming to Caledonian Road though? As the
commentary on tonight’s programme pointed out, has the road been saved but
something indistinguishable from its original make-up been left in its place? Following
the opening of the new King’s Cross station, the area is developing fast and
new residential properties are being built, leading some to fear that the ‘rough
around the edges’ character will alter. Of course, anything that improves the
lives of people of people on the poverty line has got to be positive. Gentrification,
where the workers are pushed out, is something quite different.
I think there needs to be a happy medium whereby the area is
enhanced but the long-standing community is not left behind.
“The next station is
Caledonian Road.” Rather than letting the stop pass me by, I for one will be
getting out to explore this fascinating area in more detail.
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