The second in our series of pop-up exhibitions, Living in King’s Cross, explores the experiences of people who have lived in the King’s Cross area over the past 100 years. It tells stories of daily life on some of the iconic housing estates in the area, as well as delving into the history of squatting, ...
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Anne Neale, currently the Peer Support & Volunteer Co-ordinator at the Crossroads Women’s Centre, talked to us in May 2018. She spoke about the history of the centre, which began in 1975 as a squat in Drummond Street, near Euston Station. Frequently displaced due to redevelopment and rising rents, the centre later spend 17 happy years ...
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Mark Cawson has lived in the King’s Cross area for over 30 years. Moving into a large squat on the Hillview estate in the early 1980s, he found himself living in a community of like minded people. ‘It was a huge mix. There were a lot of creative people, circus performers, writers, musicians. The Pogues ...
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Tolmers Square, an enclave of Victorian houses behind Euston Station, became home to a group of young, politically organised squatters in the 1970s. Patrick Allen was one of them: I was interested in [squatting], partly because I thought it was politically interesting, and partly because I needed to save money…for my law studies. The ...
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Alex Smith was born on the 7th of November 1953, in the village of Butley, near Glastonbury. From the sacred landscape of Glastonbury, he has spiralled his way to King’s Cross, where, he told us, Blake took inspiration in the writing of Jerusalem. Alex’s is a life infused with the images and the shapes of myth. In ...
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Photographer Mark Cawson moved to Cromer Street in the early 1980’s and began living in a row of four squatted blocks – Hillview Estate. It was an eclectic community of squatters including artists, musicians, circus performers, working girls and a small sub-set of people struggling with addiction. When short-life tenants – often ex-squatters themselves – ...
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Steve Lake moved to Priory Green Estate in 1979. Tipped off about an empty flat in Grimaldi House, a Dickensian building out of keeping with the rest of the estate, Steve and a few friends decided to make it their home. They broke into the flat ‘in the normal fashion’, and changed the locks to ...
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Jane Penton was born a Kiwi, but having an English grandfather allowed her to move to the UK during the eighties. Over the ten years that Jane was in London, she spent time living and squatting around Somers Town, an area of King’s Cross behind The British Library. I spoke with Jane via e-mail last year, ...
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Debbie Smith, Heritage Coordinator, Musician and DJ on her memories of King’s Cross and The Bell. I met Debbie one chilly October morning in her offices at the grand and glorious Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives at Bancroft Library. We talked about her past as a frequenter of The Bell (now The Big ...
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