Kings Cross, London

Coordinates: 51°31′49″N 0°07′25″W / 51.5303°N 0.1236°W / 51.5303; -0.1236

King's Cross (also Kings Cross) is an inner city area of London, England, 2.5 miles (4.8 km) north of Charing Cross. It is the location and namesake of King's Cross railway station, one of the major gateways into London from the North.

Formerly a red light district and run-down, the area has been regenerated since the mid-1990s with the terminus of the Eurostar rail service at St Pancras International opening in 2007 and the construction of King's Cross Central, a major redevelopment in the north of the area.

History

Toponymy

The area was previously a village known as Battle Bridge or Battlebridge which was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet. The original name of the bridge was Broad Ford Bridge. The corruption "Battle Bridge" led to a tradition that this was the site of a major battle in AD 60 or 61 between the Romans and the Iceni tribe led by Boudica (also known as Boudicea). The tradition claims support from the writing of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, an ancient Roman historian, who described the place of action between the Romans and Boadicea (Annals 14.31), but without specifying where it was; Thornbury addresses the pros and cons of the identification. Lewis Spence's 1937 book Boadicea – warrior queen of the Britons includes a map showing the supposed positions of the opposing armies. The suggestion that Boudica is buried beneath platform 9 or 10 at King's Cross Station seems to have arisen as urban folklore since the end of World War II. The area had been settled in Roman times, and a camp here, known as The Brill was erroneously attributed to Julius Caesar, who never visited Londinium. The name is commemorated in two streets lying behind King's Cross and St Pancras stations. St Pancras Old Church, also set behind the stations, is said to be one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain.

Kings Cross

Kings Cross or King's Cross may refer to:

King's Cross (ward)

King's Cross is a ward of the London borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. The ward has existed since the creation of the borough on 1 April 1965 and was first used in the 1964 elections.

Councillors

1965–1978

King's Cross ward has existed since the creation of the London Borough of Camden on 1 April 1965. It was first used in the 1964 election to Camden London Borough Council.

1978–2002

There was a revision of ward boundaries in Camden in 1978.

From 2002

There was a revision of ward boundaries in Camden in 2002. The ward covers parts of Bloomsbury and Kings Cross, which also crosses into St Pancras and Somers Town and the London Borough of Islington. For elections to Parliament, King's Cross is part of Holborn and St Pancras.

Kings Cross lies in the south of the borough, and is one of three wards of Camden south of Euston Road (along with Bloomsbury and Holborn and Covent Garden). It is separated from Bloomsbury by Upper Woburn Place, Tavistock Square, Tavistock Place, Hunter Street, and Grenville Street; from Holborn and Covent Garden by Guilford Street and Calthorpe Street; from the borough of Islington by Kings Cross Road and Pentonville Road; and from St Pancras and Somers Town by Euston Road.

Banks (singer)

Jillian Rose Banks (born June 16, 1988), known simply as Banks (often stylized as BANKS), is an American singer and songwriter from Orange County, California. She releases music under Harvest Records, Good Years Recordings and IAMSOUND Records imprints of the major label Universal Music Group.

She has toured internationally with The Weeknd and was also nominated for the Sound of 2014 award by the BBC and an MTV Brand New Nominee in 2014. On May 3, 2014, Banks was dubbed as an "Artist to Watch" by FoxWeekly.

Early life

Jillian Rose Banks was born in Orange County, California. Banks started writing songs at the age of fifteen. She taught herself piano when she received a keyboard from a friend to help her through her parents' divorce. She says she "felt very alone and helpless. I didn't know how to express what I was feeling or who to talk to."

Career

2013–present: Breakthrough and Goddess

Banks used the audio distribution website SoundCloud to put out her music before securing a record deal. Her friend Lily Collins used her contacts to pass along her music to people in the industry; specifically Katy Perry's DJ Yung Skeeter, and she began working with the label Good Years Recordings. Her first official single, called "Before I Ever Met You" was released in February 2013. The song which had been on a private SoundCloud page ended up being played by BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe. Banks released her first EP Fall Over by IAMSOUND Records and Good Years Recordings.Billboard called her a "magnetic writer with songs to obsess over." Banks released her second EP called London by Harvest Records and Good Years Recordings in 2013 to positive reviews from music critics, receiving a 78 from Metacritic. Her song "Waiting Game" from the EP was featured in the 2013 Victoria's Secret holiday commercial.

London, Ontario

London is a Canadian city located in Southwestern Ontario along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 366,151 according to the 2011 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the non-navigable Thames River, approximately halfway between Toronto, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The City of London is a separated municipality, politically separate from Middlesex County, though it remains the county seat.

London and the Thames were named in 1793 by Lord Simcoe, who proposed the site for the capital of Upper Canada. The first European settlement was between 1801 and 1804 by Peter Hagerman. The village was founded in 1826 and incorporated in 1855. Since then, London has grown to be the largest Southwestern Ontario municipality and Canada's 11th largest municipality, having annexed many of the smaller communities that surrounded it.

London is a regional centre of health care and education, being home to the University of Western Ontario, Fanshawe College, and several hospitals. The city hosts a number of musical and artistic exhibits and festivals, which contribute to its tourism industry, but its economic activity is centred on education, medical research, insurance, and information technology. London's university and hospitals are among its top ten employers. London lies at the junction of Highway 401 and 402, connecting it to Toronto, Windsor, and Sarnia. It also has an international airport, train and bus station.

Dickens' London

Charles Dickens' works are especially associated with London which is the setting for many of his novels. These works do not just use London as a backdrop but are about the city and its character.

Dickens described London as a Magic lantern, a popular entertainment of the Victorian era, which projected images from slides. Of all Dickens' characters 'none played as important a role in his work as that of London itself', it fired his imagination and made him write. In a letter to John Forster, in 1846, Dickens wrote 'a day in London sets me up and starts me', but outside of the city, 'the toil and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic lantern is IMMENSE!!'

However, of the identifiable London locations that Dickens used in his work, scholar Clare Pettitt notes that many no longer exist, and, while 'you can track Dickens' London, and see where things were, but they aren't necessarily still there'.

In addition to his later novels and short stories, Dickens' descriptions of London, published in various newspapers in the 1830s, were released as a collected edition Sketches by Boz in 1836.