Although the markets and shops of Camden Lock are known world-wide the lock itself was originally called Hampstead Road Lock as the adjacent bridge carried Hampstead Road over the canal. Right from the 1820s there must have been refreshment establishments here where bargees and their horses could rest and recuperate after a long working day. Many industrial and commercial units, which included warehouses, coal depots, food manufacturing plants, furniture factories and gas works, were built on or near the canal, but it should be remembered that the waterway itself also generated a substantial demand for goods and services. Stabling, for example, was most important. At dusk a horse would be tired and sweating and, with an early start the following morning, it was important to rest the animal properly overnight. Stables needed straw and oats and they needed to be 'mucked out' too. Given the rhythm of traffic and the care needed in ensuring canal horses were well shod, many stables had a blacksmith's forge within easy reach.
To canal boats going from the Midlands to the Thames docks the locks at Camden Town were at the end of what was essentially a single long pound because, between Hampstead Road (now Chalk Farm Road) Lock and Uxbridge on the Grand Junction, there were no locks except the regulating stop lock at Paddington but then there were a further 11 to pass through before reaching Limehouse. The total descent was of a little over 80 feet. We will now see the first.
From the oblique bridge or from behind the lock side railings will see a pair of ordinary canal locks. Photograph 1 was taken about 20 years ago when Camden Lock was far less of a tourist attraction than today. The locks were built after the expensive failure of an experiment with a mechanical lock that had been designed by ‘Colonel’ William Congreve and so is usually known as Congreve’s lock. It was eventually scrapped and replaced by a conventional dual pound lock.
The oblique bridge was designed to allow boats to be pulled from the south pound to the north bank towpath and was constructed in 1845. Pulling the boats across was a hard job and special horses were employed, which became so used to the routine that, once they had completed their task, would make their own way back to the starting point via the road bridge. Today Camden Lock is the place where the only working double locks remain on the Regents Canal, all the rest have been converted to single locks with a weir installed in the second chamber. Photograph 1 was taken about 20 years ago when Camden Lock was far less busy as a tourist attraction than it is today. Two narrowboats could be raised or lowered in a lock pound at the same time. In many part of the English canal system, particularly in rural areas, only a single narrowboat was able to pass through a lock because, for the sake of water economy, early canal companies frequently constructed locks to take boats no wider than 7 ft. Consequently, only a boat this narrow would be able to pass through so the name given to this type of vessel is no surprise. Photo 2 shows one of these narrow locks on the Chesterfield Canal in Retford.
Once on the south bank you will see the old lock keepers' cottage straight ahead (3). The first cottage to stand on the site was built in 1815 and, before the project was abandoned, housed the pump for Congreve's lock. The present building is presently home to a Black Sheep Coffee Store and a series of colourful information boards, prepared by the Friends of the Regents Canal, are directly to the right once inside the main door. When the area around the Regents Canal in Camden is busy there is always a large crowd of onlookers to watch the operation of the lock gates and any entertainment that is on offer. A little after New Year 2025 I took photo 4. As you may see the performer, River Atley, suggested that tapping the card reader would buy his next coffee. Using a card reader is more and more common for street entertainers these days because fewer and fewer people carry cash, or at least loose change. However, one passerby, obviously impressed by the singing, went one better and you may see her hand presenting the singer with a coffee directly, which he seemed very happy about. Sometimes visitors add little lockable locks, signifying a romantic attachment, to the railings and judging by the number behind River Atley this must be one of the most romantic corners of the London never mind the Regents Canal!
Having walked a fair distance on the towpath, you might now consider a trip on the canal itself. If so the booking office for the Jenny Wren is over Chalk Farm Road. Alternatively, you might stop for a while and get a tattoo or have your body pierced. Not quite ready for that (or have too many of those kinds of things already)? Well, just buy one of the enormous assortment of accessories, clothes and footwear on sale at local shops, many of which, fortunately, seem to have survived what we must hope will be the worst of the pandemic. The façades of many of these shops are a draw in themselves, click here to see a few examples.
If you are determined to follow the canal walk turn left when you reach Chalk Farm Road and cross the bridge. Immediately on the other side take the path down to the towpath. Turn left again and note the keystone of the first bridge to be built here (5). Continue towards Kentish Town Road bridge, which is the next bridge downstream.
As you walk towards Kentish Town Road bridge you will pass Hawley Wharf development on the left, which offers more eating, drinking and shopping opportunities. There is also a cinema. Adjacent are two locks where lock and towpath users are again separated by railings. It was in order to buy land here that James Morgan made his fateful journey to see Sir Henry Hawley in 1818. Coming back to London the coach overturned and Morgan broke his arm but he appears to have met his injury with stoicism and was soon back at work.
It is becoming rarer and rarer to catch a glimpse of any buildings that date from the very earliest days of the waterway’s operation and which would have been familiar to Morgan. He continued as the canal engineer after construction was complete however, and a small row of blue cottages (6), that may be seen soon after leaving the locks and walking on towards Kings Cross, may well have been known to him.
After a couple of turns and passing under a fine brick bridge where you may see the reflection (7) of another development, we will come to the point where William Agar, who caused the canal company a lot of trouble, lived. If you want to see the approximate spot leave the towpath at St Pancras Way, cross the road towards the Constitution pub and turn left. After a few yards you will come to Barker Drive. Turn right here and walk up a little bit and you will arrive at a little open space on the right hand side. No-one will bar us from the land today as navvies, employed by a contractor named Hugh McIntosh, were barred in 1815 because nothing remains of the old Elm Lodge. It is not, however, too difficult to imagine what the view would have been like from the house. The whole of London would have been visible, as it will still be from the most of the floors in the tower block (8). It is, perhaps, understandable that Agar was an early ‘Nimby’, but he subsequently turned the canal to financial advantage. Then, after his death, the area he had leased in 1811 was developed by his son and became known as 'Agar Town'. Short leases were granted on small plots which were developed by speculative builders, who had no interest in investing in the infrastructure. The undrained, unmade roads became channels of mud after rain and sanitary provision was lamentable. Conditions in 'Agar Town' were eventually brought to wider public attention through 'Household Words', a periodical reflecting the social preoccupations of Charles Dickens. Curiously, Dickens had lived within a few hundred yards of Elm Lodge when he was a boy, having arrived in London two years after the canal was opened. Perhaps he saw Counsellor Agar once or twice.
Returning to the towpath we can continue our walk down to Kings Cross. I think the photographs at the top of this page, taken more or less from the same spot, are a good illustration of the changes that have taken place on the canal in the last few years. The sight of an ‘industrial’ barge is relatively rare but there are now many more moored residential boats and an increasing number of riparian apartment blocks too. What has happened near the Constitution is replicated at a number of places along the canal. The south bank is developed for residential use often with nothing, not even a shrub or a flower, between the waterway-facing side of the blocks and the canal itself. Opposite are a row, sometimes two, of tied-up boats. These vessels block the view of the waterway but at least there are usually lots of points of interest for the eye and even for the nose too, sometimes. Catching the smell of a wood burning stove is to catch the smell of the C19th. Or perhaps not, for burning coal was a far more efficient way of generating the heat needed to power the industrial revolution than wood. The transport of coal, was an important spur to building the Regents Canal and most others too.
Kings Cross was known as Battle Bridge in the early C19th. At that time legend had it that, almost 1800 years before, Queen Boudicca had made her last stand against the Roman conquerors at this point, but this now seems doubtful.
Until recently a large building, which was once the property of the Post Office, stood on the south bank (9). Old warehouses backing on to the canal usually had some features worth looking at, this seemed to have hardly any and no-one could say the colour scheme did much to lift the spirits. In fact it was only a partial screen of trees and moored and passing boats that improve the scene. Few would have regretted its demolition but it will be interesting to see what replaces it.
Camden Lock to Kings Cross
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Before development
After development
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When London Became An Island
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