A tiny, nostalgic surprise beside the canal: Gasholder Park, London

Back in the UK, and a trip to London to the smallest place we’ve visited so far.

I often stay round King’s Cross in London (it’s close to Euston for the West Coast mainline). So, I naturally spend quite a lot of time enjoying the area’s ever changing streetscapes, collection of parks, and outdoor spaces.

The area I was happiest to stumble across was Gasholder Park. For an area so small, it is nothing short of spectacular.

I don’t often feel nostalgic. But I did here. As a young child, I used to be fascinated by the rising-and-falling gasholders on Blackburn’s sky line as we’d travel to my Grandma and Grandad’s house across town. I found them utterly mysterious.

You rarely see them now.

So to see one here, so beautifully reimagined, took me back to a memory I’d forgotten I even had.

A bit of background

The structure was part of Pancras Gasworks and built in the 1850s. After finally being decommissioned, this gasholder (along with others) was dismantled and restored in Yorkshire before returning to its current location, just around the corner from its original home.

Today, it frames a small circular park - a calm space that sits right in the heart of King’s Cross next to the St. Pancras Basis and Regent’s Canal. Next door, a set of three gasholder frames have been transformed into an equally stunning apartment complex.

Design and feel

The park itself is fairly small, sitting inside the frame of the, albeit huge, gas holder. It’s also quite minimal. Reflective surfaces and mirrored fins provide interest and reflections that play with light, depth and perception and echo the structure that they sit within.

What really adds to the experience is what’s around it. From the canal side, to Coal Drops Yard and the seating around Granary Square, the endless parks and gardens, markets, people families - activity is everywhere.

Gasholder Park doesn’t feel like a singular destination. And the connected patchwork of public realm around it somehow makes this minimal little park feel even more special.

A few things that stood out to me:

The balance. Inside the gasholder frame, you feel enclosed but not boxed in. Reflections bounce back at you, but look up and it’s completely open sky.

It lets the structure do the talking. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t need a big introduction. You only need to walk in.

Seating. There is lots of it and it gives you a real vantage point from which to appreciate the space.

Reflection. The intelligent use of light and mirrors helps you glimpse parallel reflections of both past and the future.

It's absolutely worth the stroll along the towpath.

Not because it's grand and showy, but because it’s quietly and subtly brilliant.