Camden New Journal - News: No Betjeman to save this rural idyll

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Camden New Journal - by IDA BERGSTRON
Published: 15 November 2007

St Pancras before the arrival of the railroad, as represented by unknown naïve painter J Austin

No Betjeman to save this rural idyll

GENTLE green fields, tinkling springs and country folk tending cud-chewing cows. It couldn’t be further from the bustle of the Somers Town of today.
But as this painting shows, the site of St Pancras train station was once the picture of semi-rural idyll.
The rare picture appeared this week at an antique art fair in west London: discovered by art historian and dealer Robert Young in a Somerset auction house. He has identified it as St Pancras in the early 18th century after noticing the signs on the buildings pictured. The sign reads “The Tearooms” as well as “The St Pancras Wells”, referring to the healing properties of the waters in St Pancras, which made it an attractive spa area at that time. Obviously there were no Betjeman-like conservationists to save it from the Industrial Revolution juggernaut.
Mr Young said the art, known as “naïve” as it was seen to have no commercial value, was a type of 18th-century amateur photography, where scenes were painted for pleasure rather than business. He said: “There is a vast heritage lost to posterity. The ones which have survived are very rare and instantly recognisable.”
The picture is by a J. Austin – but Mr Young admits little is known about the artist.
He said: “Naïve painting is the ethnic art of the British people, the raw spirit of creative force “Besides his name nothing else is known about the painter of the St Pancras piece. He would not have been a reported artist. This is what people did when they didn’t watch telly.”

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