Bartlett Walks: King’s Cross – Beyond Regeneration

Walking provides a novel perspective on issues, themes and artefacts within the built environment. Bartlett Walks is a series of PhD student led excursions around different corners of London. Covering diverse themes such as graffiti, regeneration and surveillance, the walks all assume different methodological or thematic approaches to the built environment. Come along, explore London, and get to know fellow Bartlett students from other departments.

This walk circles the site of the King’s Cross Central development, only a couple of blocks away at all times but passing through areas that are some of the least visited in central London. These are places with colourful, many-layered histories which we will explore.

Despite their proximity to busy central London and to UCL, the neighbourhoods behind Euston, King’s Cross and St. Pancras station are cut off by railway lines, canals and busy roads. We will visit Somers Town, the village of radicals; Old St. Pancras Churchyard, the psychogeographer’s favourite spot; Elm Village, once condemned as London’s worst slum; the Maiden Lane Estate, a tangle of decks, alleys and hidden corners; and Belle Isle, a strange part of London’s mythology. We will finish, for contrast, in the shiny King’s Cross Central development. The walk will take in lost stations, lost cattle markets, places of burial, places of protest, and the mythical landscape of British kings.

The walk will take you to parts of London you might never visit, right next to areas that are very well known. Looking beyond the obvious is the only way to really get to know and enjoy London.

The route is circular, beginning and ending at Battle Bridge Place, outside the King’s Cross concourse. It takes roughly 90 minutes.

This walk will be led by Tom Bolton, Space Syntax Lab.

To sign up for this event, please register via Eventbrite. Places are limited.