Kentish Town history

There was a hamlet called Kentish Town, also called St Pancras, in the Middlesex Forest in mediaeval times. The name probably comes from the Celtic word “Ken” meaning river and “ditch” meaning the Fleet River which passed through the area (now inside a Victorian iron pipe). It was a secluded village until the end of the 18th century when it began its conversion into a London suburb. Housing development commenced in the 1840s with villas for the moderately well-to-do. In the 1860s, when the Midland Railway came through the area, working class housing was created on a grand scale. Karl Marx lived for many years and died in Kentish Town.