King's Cross, London: the Great Dust-Heap, next to Battle Bridge and the Smallpox Hospital. Watercolour painting by E. H. Dixon, 1837.

  • Dixon, E. H., active 1835-1859.
Date:
1837
Reference:
38712i
  • Pictures
  • Online

Available online

view King's Cross, London: the Great Dust-Heap, next to Battle Bridge and the Smallpox Hospital. Watercolour painting by E. H. Dixon, 1837.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

You can use this work for any purpose, as long as it is not primarily intended for or directed to commercial advantage or monetary compensation. You should also provide attribution to the original work, source and licence. Read more about this licence.

Credit

King's Cross, London: the Great Dust-Heap, next to Battle Bridge and the Smallpox Hospital. Watercolour painting by E. H. Dixon, 1837. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Selected images from this work

View 1 image

About this work

Description

The painter may have been trying to capture a particular effect of light, or season of the year. Compare Wellcome Library catalogue no. 38709i

Publication/Creation

1837

Physical description

1 painting : watercolour ; image 18.8 x 27.4 cm

Lettering

View of the Great Dustheap King's Cross. Battle Bridge. 1837. from the Maiden Lane (.the present York Road.) it was removed in 1848 to assist in rebuilding the city of Moscow, Russia. The Great Northern Terminus on the spot. Weston Place. New Road & trees in the grounds of the Small Pox Hospital in the background. Lettering in the painting: "Great dustheap. King's Cross. Battle Bridge. 1837." The main lettering is in pencil under the image

References note

'Highbury, Upper Holloway and King's Cross', Old and new London: Walter Thornbury, 1878, vol. 2, pp. 273-279 ("Early in the century the great dust-heaps of London (where now stand Argyle, Liverpool, and Manchester Streets) were some of the disgraces of London; and when the present Caledonian Road was fields, near Battle Bridge were heaped hillocks of horse-bones. The Battle Bridge dustmen and cinder-sifters were the pariahs of the metropolis.The mountains of cinders and filth were the débris of years, and were the haunts of innumerable pigs.The Russians, says the late Mr. Pinks, in his excellent "History of Clerkenwell," bought all these ash-heaps, to help to rebuild Moscow after the French invasion. The cinder-ground was eventually sold, in 1826, to the Pandemonium Company for £15,000, who walled in the whole and built the Royal Clarence Theatre at the corner of Liverpool Street. Somewhere near this Golgotha was a piece of waste ground, where half the brewers of the metropolis shot their grains and hop-husks. It became a great resort for young acrobats and clowns, (especially on Sunday mornings), who could here tumble and throw "flip-flaps" to their hearts' content, without fear of fracture or sprain.")
The Great Dust-Heap features in Charles Dickens, Our mutual friend, 1865
M. Hunter and R. Thorne, Change at King's Cross from 1800 to the present, London, 1990
Survey of London, XXIV, King's Cross neighbourhood, 1952, pl.75 [text p.71]

Reference

Wellcome Collection 38712i

Creator/production credits

Signed lower right corner

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores

Permanent link