Cumberland Market
[5] 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.
[7] 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.
[9] 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.
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.
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.
[11] The steeple of Christ Church, dominated Cumberland Market as did the nearby chimney of William Grimble's gin distillery, also in Albany Street.
[12] 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.
[14] 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.
[citation needed] Ironically the canal proved useful in the construction of both King's Cross and St Pancras in terms of getting the building materials to the site.
Just over one hundred metres to the west were the wealthy occupants of Nash's Chester Terrace while a short distance to the east were areas characterised by Charles Booth, the social commentator, as being occupied by the very poor, of those in "chronic want".
The central cobbled market place, enclosed by cast-iron posts linked with chains, was surrounded by modest houses of varying styles.
The canal had proved to be a very efficient means of bringing in stone to the Cumberland Basin and a number of monumental masonry and statuary businesses had sprung up in the Euston Road to take advantage of this.
As well as monumental statuary the availability of stone, combined with cheap rents and its proximity to the centre of town had attracted a number of sculptors and artists to set up studios in the Cumberland Market area.
Fred Winter, the treasurer of the New English Art Club, sculpted at No.13 Robert Street and Walter Sickert painted in the next door studio in 1894 sharing it for a while with his former master Whistler.
The artist William Roberts also worked in the Market at this time and mentioned other neighbours as having been Bernard Meninsky, John Flanagan, Colin Gill, and Geoffrey Nelson.
A few years beforehand, concerned by the poor conditions in which many were living Mary Neal, a philanthropist, set out to help girls working in the dressmaking trade.
This proved to be one of the reasons for Sharp and Neal to fall out and although she went on to publish two Espérance Morris books, the Club closed during World War I.
In the same year the buildings on the north side of the Market were demolished, including Grimble's Vinegar Factory, and replaced by council housing.
By 15 January 1941 the Basin had been filled in with rubble from London's bombing and in the years following World War II the site was covered with topsoil and turned into allotments.
