Coal Drops and Canal Kings Cross 1989: My posts about my stroll round King’s Cross led by the Better London Industrial Archeology Society on Saturday eighth April 1989 continues. The earlier submit was Gasholders, Flats and the Items Yard – Kings Cross 1989
The Coal Drops Yard was reopened to the general public in 2018, 29 years after I made the images on this submit as what TripAdvisor calls “King’s Cross’ boutique procuring and foodie hotspot“, and I went alongside shortly after they opened to take some pictures of the remodeled website which you’ll be able to see on My London Diary at Euston to Kings Cross Coal Drops. You’ll be able to learn extra about its early historical past in a submit by Peter Darley on the Gasholder website.
Coal was carried in railway waggons from coalfields within the Midlands and North of England to the coal drops and these amenities constructed within the 1850s had been an early instance of bulk dealing with of products. The Japanese Coal Drops, along with a coal and stone basin opened in 1851 may deal with 1,000 tons of coal a day. Later round 1860 a second set, the Western Coal Drops had been added. Derelict for a few years, elements of the Japanese Coal Drops had been badly broken by hearth in 1985.
Reasonably than unload the coal waggons by hand, the coal drops allowed a waggon at a time to be discharged right into a storage hopper under, on the backside of which it might be fed into sacks and loaded onto the ready horse-drawn coal carts. There was additionally a coal drop to permit the waggons to be discharged into barges for onward transit.
The waggons might be tipped sideways in a particular rig to empty, nevertheless it was simpler to make use of waggons which had a backside that might be opened to easily let the coal fall into the hopper of the ground under the observe.
In addition to supplying coal to companies and houses throughout London, the close by gasworks would even have been a significant coal person. However I think about they might have had their very own rail sidings for supply. The gasholders have been relocated since I made these photos, which typically makes it obscure the geography of the realm.
In 1866 a viaduct was opened throughout the canal from the Western Coal drops to Samuel Plimsoll’s coal yard on the south on what was then Cambridge Avenue (marked as Coal Shoots on the OS map. He patented an improved coal drop which handled the coal extra gently and prevented a lot of the breaking apart and dirt produced by the sooner drops and was extra appropriate for the softer family coal he traded in. (There have been additionally coal drops on the opposite aspect of Cambridge St, on a siding from the strains into St Pancras.) Nonetheless visiting the Camley Avenue Pure Park now on his website shortly after it opened in 1985 I discovered not less than in elements the bottom was nonetheless extra coal mud and fragments than soil. Elements of the demolished viaduct may nonetheless be seen after I photographed from the canal towpath in 1979.
In addition to taking waggons filled with coal to the coal drops, a second observe was wanted on the viaducts to deliver again the empty waggons, which had been moved sideways utilizing a traverser or waggon turntable. I believe these had lengthy disappeared earlier than our go to in 1989.
This image is I consider the viaduct for the Western Coal Drops, and the signal BERLIN BANK presumably displays its use as a location for a movie. Maybe somebody can inform me extra.
The coated loading bay of the Western Items shed was in reasonably poor situation on the south finish, however was nonetheless offering cowl for the loading and unloading of lorries additional alongside. The lorries have the title ‘newsflow’, a reputation now in use for a lot of media and information aggregators however then I believe reasonably extra bodily linked with the newspaper and journal trade, presumably for supply of the printed papers.
Though wanting reasonably derelict elements of the realm had been nonetheless in use for varied functions and I believe a small piece of sculpture seen right here suggests a sculptor’s studio. Within the Eighties and 90s the products yard was a preferred spot for raves.
We had been capable of wander across the space pretty freely, though there have been clearly some reasonably harmful areas the place we may have fallen just like the coal, and others the place roofs or partitions appeared unsafe. However our wanderings make it troublesome to position the precise location of a few of my photos. I believe that is the viaduct for the Japanese Coal Drops, and it clearly exhibits the 2 tracks, one for the coal drop and the nearer for the return of emptied waggons. Beneath you possibly can see the realm for the hoppers and the place carts can be loaded, within the image used for parking. Throughout the tracks are a line of newsflow lorries.
Extra of my photos from the GLIAS stroll across the space in a later submit.
The primary submit on this stroll was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & Extra
Tags: 1989, BERLIN BANK, Camden, Camley Avenue Pure Park, coal drops, Coal Drops Yard, coal shoots, Japanese Coal Drops, gasholders, Kings Cross, Kings X Items Yard, London, London Images, newsflow, peter Marshall, Regents Canal, Samuel Plimsoll, viaduct, Western Coal Drops, Western Items Shed
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