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A 19th-century Gothic masterpiece and icon of the railway age

How the gothic façade of St Pancras Station became an icon of the railway age

Exit London’s King’s Cross Station and immediately you will be drawn to the spectacular Gothic cathedral-like

complex next door: St Pancras Station. It was built in 1868 by British architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, the man responsible for some of the UK’S most famous public buildings, including the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. Inspired by the Palace of Westminster, St Pancras Station was intended as a grand statement of industrial power for the Midland Railway Company. The terminal included decadent details for its time: beautiful ruby-red carpets, elaborately sweeping staircases, vaulted ceilings, gold-leafed walls, decorative architraves, pointed arched windows and gargoyle pinnacles typical of the Gothic Revival movement. Innovative features such as hydraulic lifts and revolving doors were also included in the design; once complete, Scott himself said his masterpiece was ‘too good for its purpose’. Not only a station, the building also doubled as the Midland Grand Hotel, a 300-room luxury retreat for the well-travelled, which opened in 1873.

Towards the end of the 19th century reservations at the hotel began to dwindle, as travellers’ expectations changed. Fashionable Victorians had come to expect en-suites in every room; the Grand Midland Hotel only offered communal baths. Scott’s flamboyant creation later closed and fell into neglect – only the working station and the famous Booking Hall remained open. The whole terminal was threatened with demolition until, in 1966, Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman led a high-profile campaign to save it. One of the founding members of the Victorian Society, which championed the worth of Victorian and Edwardian architecture, Betjeman described the move to knock down the complex as ‘criminal folly’. A year later his campaign succeeded and St Pancras Station was granted Grade I* status, but the historic building was still in desperate need of restoration, and lay totally empty until renovation work began in 2004. The hotel reopened as the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in 2011 and, in the meantime, the station was given a huge overhaul. The Eurostar terminal was added in 2007, connecting the capital to mainland Europe and cementing Scott’s design as a stylish destination for years to come (stpancraslondon.com).