| Somers Town | |
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Somers Town
Somers Town shown within Greater London |
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| OS grid reference | TQ295825 |
|---|---|
| London borough | Camden |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | London |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | NW1 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| EU Parliament | London |
| UK Parliament | Holborn and St. Pancras |
| London Assembly | Barnet and Camden |
| List of places: UK • England • London | |
Somers Town, was named for Charles Cocks, 1st Baron Somers.[1][2] The area in St Pancras, London, was originally granted by William III to John Somers, Lord Chancellor and Baron Somers of Evesham.[3] It was to be strongly influenced by the three mainline north London railway termini: Euston (1838), St. Pancras (1868) and Kings Cross (1852), together with the Somers Town railway and canal goods depot (1887), where the British Library now stands.
Historically, the name Somers Town was used of the larger triangular area between the Pancras, Hampstead, and Euston Roads,[1] but it is now taken to mean the rough rectangle bounded by Pancras Road, Euston Road, Eversholt Street, Crowndale Road, and the railway approaches to St Pancras Station; that is to say, the area about 200 metres east and west of Chalton Street. Somers Town to some extent overlaps with the parish and district of St Pancras.
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St. Pancras Old Church is one of the oldest Christian sites in England. The churchyard remains consecrated but it managed by Camden Council as a park, holds many literary associations, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Hardy, as well as memorials to dignitaries.The remarkable tomb of architect Sir John Soane is there.
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 the site of a council block of flats called Oakshott Court. 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 Kings Cross. In this period the area housed a large transient population of labourers and the population density of the area soared. By the late 19c most of the houses were in 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
When the Church of St Luke's, near Kings Cross, was removed to make way for the construction of the Midland Railway Station, the estimated twelve thousand inhabitants of Somers Town at that time were deprived of that place of worship, as the Church was re-erected in Kentish Town. However, in 1868, the Victorian merchant and philanthropist, George Moore built, at his own expense, a new church, known as Christ Church, with an associated school in Chalton Street with an entrance in Ossulston Street. The school accommodated about eight hundred 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. The parish church of St Mary Eversholt Street is today the parish church.
Improvement of the slum housing conditions, amongst the worst in the capital, was first undertaken by St Pancras 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 and Humanist Housing Association) (who now own Goldington Buildings) which was established in 1924.[4] 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, now mostly destroyed or replaced with replicas. 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.
In the 1980s, some council tenants took advantage of the 'right to buy' scheme, and bought their homes at a substantial discount, later moving away from the area into the outer suburbs of North London. This led to an influx of young semi-professional people, resulting in a changing population and a more diverse place to live.
Somers Town ward used to include a number of hospitals, such as the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and the National Temperance. These have all closed since 1980, with the exception of St Pancras Hospital, which still occupies the site and some of the buildings of its former life as the workhouse, adjacent to the old church. The large forbidding red brick building fronting the complex to the north of St Pancras Gardens is still residential, chiefly as a rehabilitation hospital for the elderly. Its 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.
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 removal of part of the Old St Pancras churchyard, the human remains being re-interred elsewhere.
Land at Brill Place earmarked for later phases of the British Library development were used, when the library expansion was cancelled, as site offices for the HS1 terminal development and partly to allow for excavation of a tunnel for the new Thameslink station. It has now been acquired as the site for the Francis Crick Institute (formerly the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation), a major medical research institute being 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.[5][6]
Somers Town has a flourishing street market, held in Chalton Street every Friday.
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 Camden and attracts about 10,000 people, bringing together the area's diverse cultural communities.
The children's charity Scene & Heard is 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 film Somers Town was released in 2008. Directed by Shane Meadows, filming took place almost entirely in and around Phoenix Court, a low rise council property in Purchese Street. The film was funded by Eurostar, to mark the move of its London terminus from Waterloo to St Pancras that year.
Sir William Collins School, established in the 1890s and later renamed South Camden Community School, is the main state secondary school in the area. Somers Town Community Sports Centre was built on part of the school playground. The building is leased to a charitable trust which is jointly managed by the school and University College London Union, based just south of Euston Road. 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 rebuilt, beneath four floors of University College London (UCL) accommodation units. UCL is based a few hundred metres to the south of Euston Road and is a major employer of local residents.
Vehicular through traffic is not heavy, and is confined by traffic calming and other measures to a few North/South arterial throughways.
The nearest London Underground stations are Mornington Crescent, Euston and King's Cross St. Pancras. National Rail services operate from London King's Cross and London St. Pancras — both to the east of the district; and London Euston — to the west. St. Pancras International is also the terminus for Eurostar services and will be the London terminus for the Javelin service to the London Olympic Park.
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