Secret History: 'Policeman's Walk'

One of the most closely guarded secrets in the annals of Metropolitan Police history is the existence of a walled avenue that separates the Regent's Canal from the gardens of a smart Georgian terrace in Islington, on what used to be Kings Cross's ground (ND).

Known to those serving on that division as 'Policeman's Walk', it is a little used side street called Myddleton Passage, off Myddleton Square, N1. For decades aspiring Probationers were brought here by older Pcs to learn 'Beats' - and some of the secret history of policing the south side of Islington Borough. So secret was this practice that colleagues from the neighbouring division in Islington (NI) were largely ignorant of its existence.

Nobody really knows when it started, but many years ago, shortly after a constable had been killed on duty, colleagues began the practice of inscribing their collar (later shoulder) numbers into bricks on the wall. Over several decades hundreds of these numbers have appeared and many can still be seen today, as our exclusive picture shows.

One young constable, who is still a serving Met officer, recalls the time in 1976 when he was taken out on night duty to 'learn the ground' by an older Pc and found himself in 'Policeman's Walk'. The tutor constable left his young charge for 15 minutes to inscribe his shoulder number on the wall, whilst he checked if the Shakespeare's Head was doing 'Afters'.

"I was still in my Probation and did exactly as I was told," says Peter Smyth, now a DC at New Scotland Yard. He was told that it was a divisional tradition to commemorate the murder of a colleague on the ground decades before. Interestingly, enquiries with Met Police Archives Department reveal that - though three N District officers have been murdered, in separate incidents, across the district since 1829 - none of those deaths took place anywhere near Myddleton Passage.

Why officers posted to the ground were required to comply with this convention remains a mystery. The former police station at Kings Cross Road is now a traffic warden centre and the practice appears to have faded into history - unlike the wall, which can still be seen stretching for at least 50 metres.