Cumberland Market

Cumberland Market was a London market between Regent's Park and Euston railway station. It was built in the early 19th century and was London's hay and straw market for a hundred years until the late 1920s. An arm of the Regent's Canal was built to the market. The market was surrounded by modest housing, and in the early 20th century became an artistic community. The original houses were demolished during and after World War II and it is now a housing estate, known as Regent's Park Estate.

The land to the east of John Nash's Regent's Park development had originally been laid out as a service district with small houses for tradesmen and three large squares intended for the marketing of hay, vegetables and meat., Only Cumberland Market, the northernmost square survived as a commercial area. London's hay market relocated here from the Haymarket (near Piccadilly Circus) in 1830 although it was never to prove a great success, being described in 1878 as "never [having] been very largely attended".

The Regent's Canal was developed as a means of delivering goods into the North of London. It linked the Grand Junction Canal's Paddington Arm with the River Thames at Limehouse. The Cumberland Arm was built as a spur off it and led between Nash's Park Village West and Park Village East to the Cumberland Basin which was lined by a collection of wharfs and warehouses. Hay and straw were brought in for sale at the Market and for the nearby Albany Street cavalry barracks. Barges, each capable of carrying thirty tons, would also arrive with heavy goods such as stone and lime for building; coal and timber for the neighbouring coach-building and furniture trade. Ice, too, was brought in for the ice-merchant, William Leftwich, who had an icehouse that was eighty-two feet deep and with a capacity of 1,500 tons under the Market. Vegetables and cattle were carried in as well, thus reducing the need for the latter to be driven into the city.

Clarence Market, the next square to the south, was intended to be a centre for the distribution of fresh vegetables brought in from the market gardens of Middlesex. It was later cultivated as a nursery garden and became Clarence Gardens. The houses in Clarence and Cumberland Markets were modest and the work of speculative builders who put up "run-of-the-mill products without the slightest obligation to make architecture." The southernmost square began as York Market but it never found use as a trading place and the name was later changed to Munster Square. Although its houses were tiny, with a single window on each of their three storeys, they were well-designed and perfectly proportioned.

In the NW corner of Cumberland Market, in Albany Street, John Nash had built the Ophthalmic Hospital for Sir William Adams, George IV's oculist. For several years Adams gave his services free to soldiers whose eyesight had been affected in the military campaigns in Egypt. The hospital was closed in 1822 and for a time it was used as a factory for manufacturing Bacon's and Perkin's 'steam guns'. In 1826 it was purchased by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney for the construction of his famed 'steam carriages', one of which made the journey from London to Bath and back, in July 1829. However, unable to market these vehicles Gurney was forced to sell the premises in 1832. Bought by Sir Felix Booth, the gin distiller the building survived as a landmark, although badly bombed, until demolition in 1968.

Beside the Ophthalmic Hospital was Christ Church (now St. George's Cathedral), built by Nash's assistant, Sir James Pennethorne in 1837 to serve the largely working class district. However, a series of later alterations gradually made the church more appropriate for high-church worship, and in time the windows were filled with stained glass, including a panel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose family worshipped there.

The steeple of Christ Church, dominated Cumberland Market as did the nearby chimney of William Grimble's gin distillery, also in Albany Street. In 1840 Grimble decided to embark on producing vinegar from spirit left over from the distilling process. He went into partnership with Sir Felix Booth, and they set up premises in the North East corner of the Market. The venture was unsuccessful so they turned to the more conventional method of vinegar brewing. The brewery burnt down in 1864 and was rebuilt and extended soon after.

The growth of the railway network and the opening of Euston Station in 1837 caused enormous upheaval and was one of the factors that led to the rapid decline of the area. Bringing in "noise, dirt, Irish navvies, and semi-itinerant railway workers" Charles Dickens likened the railway works cutting their way through Camden Town to a "great earthquake". More industry developed in the area than was originally planned as factories began to spring up near the canal and railway and this put even more pressure on land for housing. Houses that were originally built for middle-class families were taken over by incomers. The terraces of Mornington Crescent and Arlington Road, for example, were ideal for multi occupation for as many as nine or ten people could be accommodated in each.