Here’s a wee Monday fact for those of us who’ve braved the snow this morning….
King’s Cross got it’s name from a monument to King George IV which was built at the junction of Gray’s Inn Road, Pentonville Road, and New Road (later to become Euston Rd). The wildly unpopular monument was 60 ft high and topped by an 11 ft statue of the king; it was described at the time as “a ridiculous octagonal structure crowned by an absurd statue”. It didn’t stay around for too long – being completed in 1836 and demolished in 1845, although the area kept the name of King’s Cross and King’s Cross Railway Station now stands at the junction where the monument stood.
The suggestion that Boudica is buried beneath platform 9 or 10 at King’s Cross Station seems to have arisen as urban folklore since the end of World War Two. We really wish this were true!