Saturday 29 August 2015 11.30am – 1.00pm Start: Kings Cross Visitor Centre Part of the Curious? Festival Powered by the Knowledge Quarter  SOLD OUT

Over the last 200 years, Kings Cross has some marked periods of growth and vitality, as well as decline and neglect. It was the “Dead Centre” of London, with more burials per day at the turn of the 18th to 19th centuries, than anywhere else in the known world. The creation of the canal network was the beginning of a significant boom in the area -­‐ unbeknownst to many, these canal routes were heavily policed and the public had no access to them.  Later, engineers who would become world renowned excavated and built the railway and the terminals; and novelist and poet Thomas Hardy has a connection with the railway development. The 20th Century marked significant turning points too for the area -­‐ a target for enemy attacks, post-war housing and a mark decline in the area, caused many of the Victorian buildings to be abandoned and fall into dereliction.  The whole area is a treasure trove of ‘Lost Property’.

Kings Cross Lost is a walkshop that circumnavigates the KQ area, looking at how the neighbourhoods and street patterns have changed over the last 200 years. It takes the notion of Lost Property as a trigger for exploration of a number of key destinations; the route between these being chosen by the participants of the teenage walkshop. This is a 90 minute activity aimed at adults, families and accompanying children. The walkshop will go past places of interest in the Kings Cross area such as Old St. Pancras Churchyard, Camley Street Natural Park and the London Canal Museum.

Suitable for ages 13+

This walkshop has been devised in a collaboration between Rethinking Cities Ltd Museum of Walking with author and UCL researcher, Tom Bolton (author of London’s Lost Rivers and London Vanished City), and will being led by Walking Creative expert Andrew Stuck.

What participants told us:

What I like best about the event | What I found surprising | How much I enjoyed it and why?

• The history and learning about it | The depth of the history in these areas | 5 stars | Andrew is an excellent guide and leader who knows the history very well and is eager to learn more
• Great place, Andrew was wonderful, crazy and anarchic  | Discovering places I’d never seen in a city I thought I knew | 5 stars | Andrew and the place
• The concept of stepping through time to see the history of development | The displacement of the canal to rail, yet both persist | 4 stars | It provided a non-standard perspective on the area.
• Interesting & lively – walking though history | How routes influence the mentality of planning | 4 stars | Informative, interesting