Mornington Crescent, London

Mornington Crescent is a street in Camden, London, England. It was built in the 1820s, on a greenfield site just to the north of central London. The crescent was named after the Earl of Mornington, brother of the Duke of Wellington. Comprising three curved terraces grouped in a crescent form around communal gardens, the north side of the crescent (numbers 37-46) was constructed first, dating from the 1820s or earlier. With 36 spacious houses suitable for professional people, the crescent was originally surrounded by green fields, enjoying views across open country to the front and rear, yet was conveniently close to town.

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• Map of Mornington Cres Kings Cross London NW1 7RG UK
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Map of Mornington Cres, Kings Cross, London NW1 7RG, UK

However, the building of the railway line into the Euston terminus, and encroachment from the nearby working class districts of Kings Cross and Camden Town led to a change in the demographics of the area during the Victorian era. More and more, the houses were subdivided into houses of multiple occupancy with flats housing artists and artisans.

The communal gardens of the crescent are occupied by a large Art Deco building, known as the Carreras Building. Originally built as a tobacco factory in 1926-28 by the Carreras Tobacco Company, it is a striking example of early 20th Century Egyptian Revival architecture and a distinctive local landmark, not least because of the large bronze statues of the Egyptian cat god Bastet which adorn the front. In the 1990s the building was restored and converted into an office building and renamed Greater London House.

The crescent has a number of literary and artistic associations. The artist Frank Auerbach has a studio nearby and has often painted the crescent and surrounding area. The crescent was a popular subject of the Camden Town Group; the painter Walter Sickert lived there from 1905, at number 6, and Spencer Gore lived at number 31 from 1909-1912. Clarkson Stanfield (a painter friend of Charles Dickens) lived at number 36 from 1834-41. Dickens went to a school, Wellington House Academy, on Granby Terrace adjoining Mornington Crescent, after his spell working in a blacking warehouse.