Event led, planned and researched by Khris R.
Attendance: 29 men.
Distance: 6.89 miles (11.1 km).
Time: start 11:06, end 16:54, lunch and museum visit 90 minutes.
Speed: moving arithmetic average 1.6 mph (2.6 kph), including numerous stops as part of a guided tour.
Terrain: pavement, museum.
Elevation: low 14m, high 43m (as measured by GPS), start 18m.
Weather: overcast, 8°C to 10°C, 4-6mph westerly wind, humidity 78%
Number of sewage works: 0.
Number of churches: 4 (out of 7).
Number of golf courses: 0.
Number of museums visited: 1.
Number of Waitroses: 1.
This was a circular walk of ~7 miles from St Pancras, NE to Highbury, then SW to Kings Cross. The walk included a guided tour of artefacts connected to notable LGBTQ+ people throughout history and a visit to a museum.
The route of this walk was designed to take in a large section of historic LGBTQ+ artefacts. The full set of speaker’s notes – about 14 pages! – for the guided tour is at https://tinyurl.com/59fn2azv. These notes cover history of various artworks, Old St Pancras Church (and a number of its graves), Queer Britain museum, Lord Byron, Kenneth Williams (and his passage… ooh matron), Edith Craig, Derek Jarman, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Benjamin Britten, Sir Peter Pears, Joe Orton & Kenneth Halliwell, Brian Epstein, Roger Casement, Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards, Alan Turing, Housman’s Bookshop and Switchboard.
This area of London – the immediate north of the mainline railway stations Kings Cross & St Pancras – is one that many visitors to London will overlook. As soon as one walks north, the noise of the city declines significantly, with only the occasional aircraft noise interrupting near silence. Parts of the area – King’s Cross Coal Drop Yards – are recently developed, centred around the University of the Arts London. Squashed in between the University building and the mainline railway is a supermarket (a Waitrose!) and an artisan market, selling a wide range of goods, foods and drinks. An ideal lunch stop.
This is also the location of the museum, Queer Britain (physical location). Our thanks to the museum staff for opening the museum with provision for our visit. The museum occupied three rooms and a gift shop. In the three rooms is a surprisingly large quantity of exhibits, each with their own story. The exhibits originate worldwide. This report cannot describe the museum justly, suffice it to say that the museum is well worth a visit. As it turns out, the museum was also very busy on the day.
After the museum visit and lunch, the walk party increased in size to 29 men, and promptly descended into chaos as we tried to arrange a group shot.
The second part of the walk covered the larger distance, much of which was in the quiet suburban streets of north London, with travel through busy Camden and Highbury. After a brief route along the Grand Union Canal, we returned to the old Kings Cross area, immediately to the south of Pentonville Road A501: noisy, congested, brightly lit. Here, we lost a few of the walk party (as happens in London), before ending the walk at the optional pub stop. At which point, the neighbourhood was quiet again.
The optional pub stop was at the Central Station pub, which generously opened early on our request. 14 members visited the pub. No members took the optional option of visiting the sister venue, the Underground Club.
Our thanks to our walk leader Khris, who researched the history relevant to LGBTQ+ history month and planned the walk around his research.
Words by Martin Thornhill. Pictures by Peter O’Connor. Speakers’ notes compiled and edited by Chris Renshaw, original content from publicly available sources (including Wikipedia).
