The King of King's Cross

King's Cross is a station in north-central London, which is named after the area of King's Cross. On a junction next to the station there was once a monument erected to King George IV, who served as Prince Regent from 1811 until 1820 when he became king. He died in 1830 and the monument was erected in 1835. It is thus King George IV that the King of King's Cross refers to. King George IV was unpopular due to his laziness, profligacy, indulgence and the way he treated his wife, and the statue wasn't very popular either - it was a 60-ft structure with an 11-ft statue of the king on top - and so it was pulled down in 1845. People still called the area King's Cross, however. Before the erection of the statue the area was a village called Battlebridge. I did a guided walk yesterday along the route of the old River Fleet and we began outside King's Cross station as Battlebridge was originally located at a ford and popular crossing place of the river.

Comments

[Marc Leavitt]

Susan:
When I visited Australia some years back, I went to dinner in the King's Cross section of Sydney, which is a small Bohemian community. I don't know which king the name celebrates, and I don't recall seeing a statue, but Sydney was a rough frontier town when George IV reigned, so perhaps it was dedicated to him. Best wishes for the new year.

[Picky]

How brave the Victorians were! To put up a 70ft statue and then tear it down 10 years later because it wasn't popular! I can think of some modern opportunities for that treatment.

Marc: according to Wikithingummy the Sydney one (which seems to be fairly insalubrious, like the London one) was originally Queen's Cross (after VR, of course) and later got updated.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks to you both for your comments, and to you, Picky, for answering Marc.

[online jobs]

I'm perfectly nice list I found here and was looking for backlinks dofollow blog.