“It was almost worthy of an announcement by Regent House…
“The Cambridge Society London inaugurated the bicentennial commemorations of the Regent’s Canal. The regency opening had taken place on Monday 12th August 1816, the birthday of the Prince Regent. One hundred and ninety nine years to the day around 40 members and guests of the Society gathered at today’s coffee house by Camden Lock, where the1816 opening had been marked. It was here also that in 2012 the ‘Canals and Rivers Trust’, the present day guardians of the Regent’s and most other canals, was itself launched. The coffee shop start was fitting: it was a business start-up meeting in a coffee house off Oxford Street that saw the idea for a canal born in 1811.
“The Society offered two walk times and the towpath walk options took in links to the American anthem and the Beagle II Open University’s 2003 Martian landing mission centre at Camden Town. It is still within living memory that the surface of Mars was once believed to be criss-crossed by canals. There were local links to Shakespeare’s Henry V, to filming for the latest James Bond (‘Spectre’ is due out in November), to Michael Caine’s film career spanning five decades including ‘Alfie’ in the 1960s and there were links to radio crime series ‘The Net and the Canal’..
“Post-Agincourt peace negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund had played out where later, in 1815, fights and frauds took place at the ‘Greys Inn Bridge’. Espionage and World War II deceptions, gin revenue evasion, infringements of the Town & Country Planning Acts and graffiti wars all surfaced from the murky depths.
“Having passed under the ‘Cambridge Street’ bridge, today known as Camley Street, it was time to search out the Camley Arms, a fine hostelry described in the 1960s. Alas it had been discovered to be an elaborate and colourful hoax (beautifully illustrated by the late Assheton Gorton (King’s) who went on to design Cruella de Vil’s ‘Dalmations House’). Not to worry, King’s Cross offered a multitude of options and there was even time to hop aboard the ‘Cambridge Express’ for a ‘King Street Run’.”
Organised by Alastair Gourlay, David Peace and Lester Hillman