Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
restaurants, a weekend market, night club and picture and antique shops. There is a cruising
restaurant boat and there are open-air jazz concerts, ox roasts, Caribbean parties and exhibi-
tions - a thriving hive of activity.
Hampstead Road Lock has a two-storey castellated lock cottage that was the first of the
buildings in the area to have battlements and is now the canal information centre, reached
by a cast-iron bridge over the canal. The lock marks the end of the 43km Long Level pound
from the Grand Union Canal main line at Cowley and Norwood Top Lock. From here it is a
26m descent to the Thames.
The Constitution pub begins a straight reach that is bordered by a large recent housing
complex and then the Jubilee Waterside Centre.
The skyline ranges from the British Telecom Tower to the Tower 42, formerly the NatWest
Tower, but only one of the five St Pancras gas holders remains with its delicate 1860 tracery,
a listed structure originally belonging to the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company.
The extensive King's Cross redevelopment scheme has been taking place on both sides of
the canal while the canopy of King's Cross station may be seen on the right, from where the
East Coast Main Line passes under the canal and from where the Hogwarts Express used to
leave from platform 9 3/4. Disused stop gates under a bridge were positioned to protect the
railway from flooding in case of a well-aimed wartime bomb. The other set of stop gates are
under Maiden Lane Bridge, which has fine cast-iron work dating from 1850.
Battlebridge, named after Boudica's fight with the Romans, became King's Cross. The
name is retained in the Battlebridge Basin, also known as the Horsfall Basin from the name
of the local landowner at the time of the canal's construction. The 6,000m
2
basin has the Lon-
don Canal Museum in a former ice-cream company ice warehouse and King's Place, Lon-
don's newest concert venue.
