This week Camden Guide, Mike Marriott takes us from old Saint Pancras to new St Pancras, and if you would like to explore this area more, join his walk https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-old-st-pancras-to-new-st-pancras-a-historic-walk-tickets-1655010453819
SAINT PANCRAS
The London Borough of Camden was formed in 1965 out of 3 constituent former Metropolitan Boroughs. There was the Borough of Hampstead, with the village centered on its Parish Church, Saint John. And the Borough of Holborn, also with its old Parish Church – Saint Andrew.
But what was Saint Pancras? By the beginning of the last century it was of course famous as railway station. But was it also a PLACE – or was it only a church, or two? There was the original church, by the last century known as Old Saint Pancras, and a NEW Church – “New Saint Pancras”.
The old church is usually considered to be at the historic heart of St Pancras but since the Middle Ages, if not before, it has been singularly lacking in the usual accoutrements which surround a parish church – houses, shops, a pub, a farm etc.
So, this begs the question, why did the old parish church, in more recent times known as “the church in the fields”, develop where it was and if there was originally a settlement there, why did it disappear?
The answer to the first question is usually considered to be because there had been an old Roman settlement there, beside the River Fleet. And any church was built or rebuilt around 597 when St Augustine (whose favourite saint was Saint Pancras) visited Britain. Its true origins are lost in the mists of time. But there is a 9th century reference to a church, the actual church on its current site was mentioned in 1183 and it was repaired between 1331 and 1350.
But the church then became neglected and the Centre of village life in the parish moved to Kentish Town, 2 miles away to the north.
Why? – it seems that there were some natural changes in the lie of the land. Probably potential parishioners had increasing difficulty attending the church due to the constant flooding of the River Fleet in front of it. In any event, a chapel was built in Kentish Town in 1456 but the place remained as the parish of “St Pancras”.
In 1593 John Nordern wrote “Pancras church standeth all alone, as utterly forsaken, old and weather-beaten….About this church have in (sic) many buildings now decayed and in November 1642 Parliament ordered the “deserted church of St Pancras to be disposed unto lodging for fifty troupers”.
But London never stands still and the construction of the NEW ROAD (later the part in St Pancras called the Euston Road) in 1756 between Paddington and Islington proved a catalyst for much development both north and south of the road.
The land to the north had been owned by John Somers, Lord Chancellor who had drafted the Bill of Rights which brought William and Mary to the throne in 1689.
In 1784 the then Lord Somers leased land on the farmland in his estate (known as Brill Farm) to a Frenchman, Jacob Leroux, and this started the housing development in the area. However, unlike the development on the south, Bloomsbury, side of the New Road, the area to the north rapidly developed into a working-class area.
Both areas needed new churches to cater for the rapidly developing population and the Inwoods, Father and son architects were commissioned, initially for the church to the south of the new Road. The church, called St Pancras New Church was finally completed in 1822 and the cost, at £89,296, made it the mist expensive church in London since St Paul’s Cathedral
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras_New_Church#/media/File:New_St_Pancras_Parish_Church.jpg
The church was designed, rather controversially, in the Greek Revival style and is notable for the caryatids that “guard” the entrance to the crypt.
Soon after it was completed, work started on the building of St Mary’s Somers Town, which was started in 1824 and finished in 1827. Being for a less well-off area it was inevitably less grand, and it has recently been covered in scaffolding as urgent restoration work is needed.
The continued expansion of London, however, meant that by the 1840s Old St Pancras sat in a fully populated area and so in 1847 – 48 the church underwent a complete restoration
Meanwhile, the conditions of the housing in Somers Town continued to deteriorate and towards the end of the century the then owner of the estate, Lady Isabel Somers-Cocks, tried hard to make improvements but was hampered by lack of money. Eventually she sold of most of the estate and development was undertaken, initially by the Metropolitan Board of Works and later by the newly created St Pancras council from the end of the 19th century.
Housing improvement has continued until this day and now an impressive range of different forms of social housing can be seen.
