The Granary

TQ3083NW 798-1/79/1740

CAMDEN, YORK WAY (North side), The Granary

16/05/78

GV II

Granary. 1851-2. By Lewis Cubitt. Multi-coloured stock brick. Double-hipped Welsh slate roof covered in bitumen. Rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: 6 storeys. Main south front with symmetrical facade of 9 bays with 4 slightly projecting hoist bays. Flanking bays with later square-headed, recessed windows to 4 storeys, illuminating stairs. Segmental arched, recessed casements to window bays, alternating with hoist bays with double, wooden half glazed hoist doors to each floor set in segmental-arched recesses rising full height of building. Some remaining crane mechanism under projecting stone hoods carried on paired brackets. Projecting stone cornice and blocking course carried round projecting bays. INTERIOR: with wooden flooring carried on cast-iron columns and T beams. Each floor with 46 columns arranged in 6 colonnades each supporting a line of paired cast-iron beams running approximately east-west. From the ground to 4th floor column circumferences become progressively smaller. Column heights 2.4m except for those at ground floor being 4.1m. 5th floor taller columns in 2 central colonnades support the roof structure, lower columns forming 2 colonnades to either side support massive cast-iron beams that originally bore water tanks used in a low pressure hydraulic power system. Wooden roof structure with queen post trusses having a single wrought-iron suspension rod running down from the apex to the collar in each truss; cast-iron brackets at the intersection of timbers are used in place of timber joints. Staircases in south-east and south-west corners; stone geometrical stairs with original wrought-iron balustrades. Original cast-iron, double fire doors from staircase on each floor. HISTORICAL NOTE: this warehouse was the primary feature of the goods interchange facilities at King's Cross. Designed to store up to 60,000 sacks of grain which were moved by an early use of hydraulic power to hoists, the Granary originally had 2 canal arms running beneath the ground floor with access to the Regents Canal via an open basin or dock on the main south front (now filled in). Rail access was from 3 lines running east-west to the flanking transit sheds; platforms that served these lines survive in the north-west and north-east corners of the Granary.

Listing NGR: TQ3013683541