King's Cross was a short-lived building in London which gave its name to the area still known as Kings Cross. The building was erected in 1830, as the base for a memorial to the recently deceased King

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830. At the time of his accession to the throne, h ...

. A statue of the late king was added in 1835, but then removed in 1842, and the structure was demolished in 1845.

History

The structure was built using public subscriptions, raised by its architect and promoter

Stephen Geary Stephen Geary (31 August 1797 – 28 August 1854) was a British architect, inventor, entrepreneur, and, from 1850, Temperance movement, Temperance activist. Early life Geary was born in Dean's Yard, Westminster, London, on 31 August 1797. At ...

. He exhibited a model of "the Kings Cross" at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

in 1830. The project was originally intended to be called "St George's Cross". The amount raised was disappointingly low, and the structure was correspondingly less impressive than intended. It was constructed at the junction of

Gray's Inn Road Gray's Inn Road (or Grays Inn Road) is an important road in Central London, located in the London Borough of Camden. The road begins at its junction with Holborn at the City of London boundary, passes north through the Holborn and King's Cross ...

, Pentonville Road and New Road (developed in 1765, and renamed

Euston Road Euston Road is a road in Central London that runs from Marylebone Road to Kings Cross, London, 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 ...

in 1857), in an area previously known as Battle Bridge, where York Way crossed the

River Fleet The River Fleet is the largest of Subterranean rivers of London, London's subterranean rivers, all of which today contain foul water for treatment. It has been used as a culverted sewer since the development of Joseph Bazalgette's London sewe ...

, reputedly referring to a battle fought between

Boudicca Boudica or Boudicca (, from Brythonic * 'victory, win' + * 'having' suffix, i.e. 'Victorious Woman', known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as , ) was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed up ...

's rebellious army of

Ancient Britons The Britons (Linguistic reconstruction, *''Pritanī'', , ), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the Celts, Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point ...

and soldiers of

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. It had an octagonal base with paired columns at each corner, a balustrade at first floor level intended to be decorated with four statues, one on each corner (either kings of England, or the patron saints of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; but it is not clear if any statues were ever put in place), rising to a pedestal with a clock. From 1835, it was surmounted by a statue of George IV. The statue stood high, on top of the high building. The statue cost no more than £25. It was constructed of bricks and mortar, and finished in a manner that gave it the appearance of stone, "at least to the eyes of common spectators". It was described by

Walter Thornbury George Walter Thornbury (13 November 1828 – 11 June 1876) was an English author. He was the first biographer of J. M. W. Turner. Early life George Thornbury was born on 13 November 1828, the son of a London solicitor, reared by his aunt and ...

as "a ridiculous octagonal structure crowned by an absurd statue". It was one of the buildings criticised by

Pugin Pugin most commonly refers to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852), an English architect and designer. Members of his family include: * Augustus Charles Pugin Augustus Charles Pugin (born Auguste-Charles Pugin; 1762 – 19 Decem ...

in his 1836 polemical book ''Contrasts'', which advocated a revival of the medieval Gothic style. Pugin compared King's Cross unfavourably with the medieval Chichester Cross. The upper storey was used as a

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...

. The base was used for exhibitions, then as a police station, and later a public house. The statue was shoddily built, never satisfactory, and was removed in 1842. The building remained in the middle of a public road, and became a hazard to traffic. The building was demolished in 1845, with a report in ''

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...

'' mentioning its "grandiloquent name of King's Cross'". King's Cross railway station opened nearby in 1852. In 2014, with the redevelopment of the King's Cross area, there was a proposal to "put the king back into Kings Cross" by erecting a plaque to the memorial.

References

External links

'Plate 83: King's Cross. Memorial to George IV.'
in Survey of London: Volume 24, the Parish of St Pancras Part 4: King's Cross Neighbourhood, ed. Walter H Godfrey and W McB. Marcham (London, 1952), p. 83 * {{coords, 51.5307, -0.1215, display=title Kings Cross, London Buildings and structures completed in 1830 Buildings and structures demolished in 1845 Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Camden Removed monuments and memorials Cultural depictions of George IV Royal monuments in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References

External links