Somers Town, London

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Location
Somers Town
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OS grid reference:	TQ295825
Latitude:	51.526502°
Longitude:	-0.132291°
Administration
London borough:	Camden
County level:	Greater London
Region:	London
Constituent country:	England
Sovereign state:	United Kingdom
Other
Ceremonial county:	Greater London
Historic county:	Middlesex
Services
Police force:	Metropolitan Police
Fire brigade:	London Fire Brigade
Ambulance service:	London Ambulance
Post office and telephone
Post town:	LONDON
Postal district:	NW1
Dialling code:	020
Politics
UK Parliament:	Holborn and St. Pancras
London Assembly:	Barnet and Camden
European Parliament:	London
London \| List of places in London

Somers Town, named after the Somers family who owned the land, is an area of London south of Camden Town. Somers Town is bounded by Euston Road, Eversholt Street, Crowndale Road, and Pancras Way. Vehicular through traffic is heavy but mostly confined by traffic calming and other measures to a few North/South arterial throughways. The area has been shaped by three mainline railways termini : Euston (1838), St. Pancras (1868) and Kings Cross (1852), and the Somers Town railways and canals goods depot (1887) (now the site of the British Library). Large-scale nineteenth century railways and canal termini construction attracted large work forces and displaced huge numbers of people who were not rehoused.

Somers Town ward used to include a number of hospitals including Elizabeth Garret Anderson, National Temperance and St. Pancras Hospital,(formerly ''the workhouse''). They have all closed and the large forbidding red brick building complex to the North of St Pancras Gardens which was St Pancras Hospital, more recently housed non resident UCL Hospital nurses and is now the HQ of Camden Primary Care NHS Trust. It also accommodates parts of Islington Primary care Trust, St Pancras Coroners Court and a small 'day hospital'.

St Pancras old church is adjacent to 'the workhouse' and is one of the oldest churches in London. Within the churchyard are many memorials to Victorian dignitaries.

In 1784 the first housing was built at the "Polygon", now the site of a council block of apartments named "Oakshott Court". The development was not entirely successful and the land was subsequently sold off in smaller lots that attracted people escaping from the French revolution until overcrowding became manifest.

Improving the slum housing conditions was first undertaken by St. Pancras Council from 1906, by St Pancras Housing Association formed by catholic priest Father Basil Jellicoe from 1924 and by the London County Council from 1927. There remains a small enclave of Grade 2 listed houses.

Sir William Collins school, renamed South Camden Community School, is a focus of trouble and violence. There is often a heavy police presence at the end of the school day.

Somers Town has a large sports centre, built on the South Camden Secondary School playground, owned by non resident University College London Union. It is used by their sports teams for training and home matches.

In addition to the large state Secondary School, there are three primary schools, Edith Neville (state), St. Aloysious (Catholic) and St Mary and St Pancras (Church of England) which has been rebuilt, beneath four floors of non resident University College London accommodation units.

During the 1980's some council tenants took advantage of the 'right to buy' scheme, and, having bought their homes with a substantial discount, then chose to move away from the area into leafier parts of North London. This led to an influx of young professionals, resulting in a slightly less unbalanced population, including a small minority willing to criticise the status quo and generate change, but Somers Town is still officially designated a "deprived " area. The 1991 census characterised it as having the highest proportion in Camden, of non owner occupiers, chronically sick people, under 16s, and non car owners (a blessing in disguise in an area superbly well serviced by short and long haul public transport).

Somers Town used to be a cultural melting pot. Waves of ethnic groups that settled here and integrated successfully unhindered by official 'aid', included Irish railways construction workers and Huguenot refugees. More recently, (muslim) Bengali Somali Kosovan and Albanian "communities" have established themselves, deterred from integrating by substantial public spending on the promotion of separate "communities", that "inadvertently encourages a kind of voluntary apartheid" and subverts efforts aimed at "creating a united society" - as shadow Home Secretary David Davis politely puts it.

There is major construction work along the Eastern boundary of Somers Town ward at the time of writing in 2006, as redevelopment of the King's Cross area and the St. Pancras Channel Tunnel rail terminal. Unfortunately, as happened in the case of the recently completed British Library project built on the site of the large Somers Town railways and canals goods terminal, opportunitites to promote related training and employment of local people during construction and operational phases were not exploited by local leadership.

An officially sponsored Somers Town Festival is held every year on a Saturday in July.

Somers Town Market is a flourishing open street market, held in Chalton Street, adjacent to the British Library, every Friday.