In the Capital
KING’S CROSS London’s hippest new area is buzzing with shops and restaurants – it’s the perfect urban base for a city break with attitude Words | Helen Holmes
If you’re already in London it’s almost impossible not to pass through King’s Cross at some point, as the tube network converges here. Trains from all over Britain also arrive at King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, as well as nearby Euston. St Pancras is the home of the Eurostar terminal, with trains direct from Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and beyond. Tube or rail links will also bring you direct to the area from most of the capital’s airports.
Pictured left page: Coal Drops Yard London's newest shopping and dining district
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HE LOCATION OF KING’S CROSS – in the heart of London, and easily accessible from almost anywhere, makes it surprising that it was ever an unloved patch of the capital. But just a few years ago it was nothing more than a grimy transport hub, with a few derelict warehouses thrown in for good measure. However, the neglect that the area suffered has turned out to be its saving grace. From the neo-gothic exuberance of St Pancras, to the urban majesty of the repurposed gas holders that line Regent’s Canal, via the sleek brutalism of the former Town Hall extension, now The Standard hotel, you could come to King’s Cross just for the architecture – but it offers so much more. If the area had been developed hotchpotch over the years, many of its architectural gems might have been lost when they were out of fashion – as St Pancras, famously saved by John Betjeman in the 1960s, nearly was. As it is, the buildings have been largely preserved – and over the past decade King’s Cross has undergone a transformation that has been social as well as architectural. World class hotels nestle side by side with quirky gems, like a floating bookshop in a 1920s Dutch barge, and a peripatetic café cooking up food grown on site. à
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