Just up near Torriano is one of our favourite street signs, with its evocative font and intriguing list of roads in what Victorian estate agents called New Kentish Town (yes, really!).
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 the first bombs fell in St Pancras, on Sept 8 1940, destroying St Luke’s Vicarage on the corner and two adjoining houses.
Four years later however, on 9 Sept 1944, a special street party was held in Busby Place as part of the government’s Holidays At Home campaign.
Fast forward another 60 years and the former St Luke’s Hall reopned, in 2004, as the continually thriving multi-purpose Kentish Town Community Centre (KTCC).
With thanks to the excellent ‘Streets Of Kentish Town’ (published by Camden History Society, available from Owl Bookshop).
