King's Cross Station

 A couple of days ago Mary bought me a packet of 12 Staedtler 0.3mm fineliners, all different colours. I was itching for a chance to try them out. So it struck me. I have completed the first side of the London Monopoly board, from Go all the way to Jail (Just Visiting). Of the seven eligible squares I've drawn new sketches for five of them - Old Kent Road, Whitechapel Road, Angel Islington, Pentonville Road and Jail. Which means I'd used old sketches for Kings Cross Station and Euston. Now, this is perfectly allowable in the rules I've set myself for the challenge. It doesn't stipulate that the old pictures I use have to be any good. Still, while I'm quite happy with the Euston Arch sketch, I'm not happy with the Kings Cross sketches. The interior one is quite nice, the steam locomotive is well drawn and shaded. . . but it's only the interior of the station and not instantly recognisable as Kings Cross. The exterior one is little more than a basic line drawing. So yesterday evening I took out the coloured pens and got cracking. 

I made this one on a cheaper, smoother paper than the Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook I've used for most of the other Monopoly drawings. The paper in this cheaper book is smoother and less absorbent than the Seawhite book, which made me more confident using a 0.3mm nib. Here's the result:-

It's not too bad and I think it sits better alongside the other Monopoly sketches than my earlier drawings of the station. I think. The horse drawn tram on the far right gives us just a little help with dating, although not necessarily as much as you might think. The first horse drawn tram in London was as early as 1861 while the very last horse drawn tram in London ceased in 1915. Like a lot of reference photos I've used in these Monopoly drawings and in other sketches of London, I would date this between the last decade of the 19th century and the first of the 20th.

One of the interesting idiosyncracies of he London Monopoly board is the choice of stations. Kings Cross makes sense and you can also make out a case for Liverpool Street. But Marylebone? And Fenchurch Street ?!? Surely Paddington, Euston and Victoria (or Waterloo) all had a greater claim. Well, our Vic Watson was from Leeds. And at the time of his fact finding mission, Leeds was on the London North Eastern Railway (LNER for short). So it seems that Vic just picked the four LNER termini in London at that time.