A while back we published a Victorian press cutting about a violent robbery and murder on Brecknock Road. We were alerted to the tale by Rose Wild, from The Times Archive, who has now sent us two further discoveries about Kentish Town’s murky past. The first concerns a fatal fight behind the Assembly House; the second, some sixty years later, a horrific baby murder in Montpelier Grove.
First, the duel. Way back in 1827, a couple of young whippersnappers, employed as excavators on the new railway line, guzzled way too much to drink at the Assembly House one night. They “quarrelled about some tools”, and then got into a massive scrap. “Hundreds” joined in the fighting and so the only way to resolve the ruckus was to challenge each other to a duel in a meadow nearby.
Both “powerful, resolute men,” the pair stripped – so far, so homoerotic – and fought for an impressive, and wearying, two hours.
What happened next? Read the full article on the following page.
