If you live in, work in or have had to pass through Kings Cross at any point in the last eight or so years, you’ll have seen the area’s extraordinary transformation from industrial waste land / looks like where the bodies are dug up by unknowing construction workers in a grim BBC1 Drama, to a place where The Guardian, Central Saint Martins, swanky flats and a bunch of chi chi restaurants now call home. Or temporarily called home as was the case for Shrimpys in the old petrol station from the guys behind Bistrotheque.

My friend is a project director for Argent, the developer behind the almighty regeneration project going on here and this monday she took me on a tour inside the Victorian Coal drops (above), which sit adjacent to Central Saint Martins on Granary Square. You might also know the site as Bagleys bottle factory or,more likely, Bagleys nightclub where Madonna and Prince supposedly once partied. Probably not together although I cannot confirm.

Well, this is going to be a retail destination as they say, although right now it’s very much in the early construction phase. The two long storage buildings opposite each other will be joined up with a new roof space that will add valuable square feet of shopping area to the site (3,000 sq feet in total).

The Coal drops were built in the 1850s and 60s to transfer coal from rail wagons to road carts. On the surrounding high-level rail tracks, wagons would drop coal down into storage hoppers on the ground level from which horse-drawn carts would load up. These rail tracks will become London’s answer to The High Line – a gorgeous park in the sky designed by Dan Pearson, which will mosey past various restaurants including something new from Jamie Oliver, on it’s way around to the shops. I’m not sure whether I’m meant to share which brand is coming in as the ‘anchor shop’ but lets just say they’re hot on fashion and homewares, were once on The Apprentice and are not from round ‘ere.

Inside the coal drop/warehouse/factory/club was a lovely mess of industrial fittings, abandoned rooms, peeling paint walls, a good colour combo idea (black, brown, blue and green), leftover signs of the clubbing days and more than one Pleb.

When the contractor took over the site there were club passes on the floor, old beer crates, even decks – the leases had run out and the clubs had had one last party and fled.

A fire nuked this part of the building where only an exterior wall is left.

The ‘Railway green’ colour on the windows is probably going to carry through to the next version of this building in homage to its past.

I had a good nosy around some of the other parts of the neighbourhood while there, so I’ll be back in a bit with Part II. In the meantime you can read more about New Kings Cross here.