Cumberland Market

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Cumberland Market was a London market located between Regent’s Park and Euston station. It opened in the early 1800s and became London’s hay and straw market for about a hundred years, until the late 1920s. An arm of the Regent’s Canal called the Cumberland Arm served the market, and the area around it had modest housing. In the early 1900s it became an artistic community. After World War II the original houses were demolished and the area is now a housing estate called Regent’s Park Estate.

To the east of Nash’s Regent’s Park development, the land was laid out as a service district with small houses and three large squares for hay, vegetables and meat. Cumberland Market was the northernmost square and survived as a commercial area. The hay market moved from the Haymarket (near Piccadilly Circus) to this site in 1830, but it never became very large.

The Regent’s Canal was built to bring goods into North London. It linked the Grand Junction Canal to the River Thames at Limehouse. The Cumberland Arm ran from the canal to the Cumberland Basin, which was lined with wharfs and warehouses. Hay, straw and ice were sold at the market. Ice was stored in a very deep icehouse under the market. Heavy goods like stone, lime, coal and timber also arrived by boat. Vegetables and cattle were brought in as well, helping to reduce cattle driving into the city.

Clarence Market, just to the south, was meant to be a center for fresh vegetables from Middlesex. It later became Clarence Gardens. The southern square began as York Market but was renamed Munster Square. The houses around Cumberland Market were modest, built quickly by speculative builders with simple designs.

In the northwest corner, Albany Street held the Ophthalmic Hospital built by John Nash’s assistant, James Pennethorne. It served soldiers with eye problems during campaigns in Egypt. The building later saw many uses, including a factory and then work by famous engineers. It was later purchased by a gin distiller, and although it survived for a time, it was finally demolished in 1968.

Beside the Ophthalmic Hospital stood Christ Church (now St. George’s Cathedral), built in 1837. It became a high-church church with stained glass, including a panel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The steeple and the nearby gin distillery chimney were landmarks in the area. Grimble’s gin distillery in Albany Street later started making vinegar from distilling leftovers. The vinegar business failed and the brewery burned down in 1864 but was rebuilt.

The growth of railways and Euston Station in 1837 brought big changes and upheaval. Dickens described the railway works cutting through Camden Town like an earthquake. Factories grew near the canal and railway, increasing demand for housing. Middle-class families’ houses were often taken over by new residents. Some streets became crowded with multiple occupants.

By 1852 the Midland Railway moved coal to London through Euston and King’s Cross. The canal helped bring materials for King’s Cross and St Pancras, but by the 1850s the Cumberland Basin was in poor condition. Cholera spread among families working on boats and wharves, and housing conditions worsened. In 1868 about 4,000 houses to the east of Cumberland Market were demolished to make way for St Pancras Station, displacing tens of thousands of people.

By the late 19th century Cumberland Market sat between wealth to the west and very poor areas to the east. The market itself traded three days a week and the central market area was surrounded by three-storey houses, many of which later housed businesses on the ground floors. By the early 20th century around 21 businesses and four pubs were listed in the market.

The area attracted artists and sculptors who set up studios in nearby streets. Notable residents included Robert Bevan, who used a first-floor studio at No. 49 Cumberland Market for his Cumberland Market Group, and painters like Sickert, Whistler, and Nevinson worked nearby. The poet Charlotte Mew wrote about Cumberland Market in 1914, and the Espérance Girls’ Club at No. 50 helped working girls with music and games, including Morris dances.

In 1916 Miss M. M. Jeffery began managing the Cumberland Market Estate for the Crown Lands, serving thousands of tenants. The market kept operating into the late 1920s, but most businesses disappeared by 1931, leaving only the King’s Head pub. The north side of the market was demolished for council housing.

In 1938 the Cumberland Basin was dammed and drained, and after World War II the remaining buildings were cleared. The 32 acres of Cumberland Market and surrounding squares were sold in 1951 to St Pancras Borough Council to build the Regent’s Park Estate, a major new housing development.