Tag | Kentish Town History

Wednesday Picture: Is Kentish Town Really Changing?

By on November 14, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

It’s two years this month since I started The Kentishtowner and it’s got me thinking about change. On the surface Kentish Town has seen some quite dramatic developments of late, something embraced not only by us but by national titles like the FT, Metro and Times (NW5 is now a ‘hotspot’). But what will the [...]

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Wednesday Picture: Who links Rochester Terrace to Brighton West Pier?

By on June 27, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

Stretching northwest from Camden Road, Rochester Terrace Gardens and its surrounding streets form an unusually calm and peaceful patch of south Kentish Town. In fact, as far back as 1898 the area was recorded in Charles Booth’s poverty map as a ‘a wonderful quiet neighbourhood.’ Rochester Road is blocked off at the Kentish Town Road [...]

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Wednesday Picture: Mary Shelley’s ‘Odious Swamp’

By on June 13, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

Why did Frankenstein author Mary Shelley call Kentish Town an ‘odious swamp?’ (If it makes you feel any better, local readers, Naples was a ‘paradise inhabited by devils’, her villa on the Italian Riviera a ‘dungeon’. Christ knows what she would make of Poundstretcher). In 1824 Shelley moved to Bartholomew Place, a rather lovely terrace [...]

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Wednesday Picture: Maud Wilkes Close, Kentish Town

By on March 28, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

This rather scenic garden is at the back of Maud Wilkes Close, just off Leighton Road, a seemingly unremarkable cul-de-sac of flats and houses built by the St Pancras Housing Association in 1999. Yet this green space, with its almost pastoral views over Lady Margaret Road to the Assembly House, has, like the rest of [...]

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Wednesday Picture: Claudius Ash false-teeth factory, Anglers Lane

By on February 29, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

Longterm readers may remember our quiet love for Anglers Lane, the curving road leading south-west from Nando’s which, in Victorian times, was the haunt of fishermen. An imposing building, once the excellently-named Claudius Ash & Co (manufacturers of false teeth), dominates much of the street. Look closely as it’s generally considered an outstanding example of [...]

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Wednesday Picture: Busby Place

By on February 15, 2012 in Wednesday Picture

One of our favourite street signs in the manor, with its evocative font and intriguing list of roads in what Victorian estate agents called New Kentish Town. The historic sign dates back to 1858, when the street was built to provide access onto Camden Road. Its unfortunate claim to fame, though, is as the site [...]

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