a300 St. Pancras Station

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The Settle - Carlisle Railway

The Heart of the Midland Railway - St.Pancras Station

Alas, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has changed my beloved Victorian St. Pancras Station forever. The gasholders have gone but they've not made too much of a mess of it. However, although the new station is a great 21st Century icon, I plan to keep these pages firmly fixed in the 1990s. It was much quiter then and you didn't get the security jobsworth's telling you not to take photographs.

The Midland Railway reached the Great Northern Railway main line at Hitchin in May 1857 and by the 1st of February 1858 Midland Railway trains were running into the capital over Great Northern Railway Company tracks.

The Midland Railway continued to use their running powers into Euston Station over track owned by the London and North Western Railway Company but neither arrangement was entirely satisfactory as, quite naturally, the other companies gave priority to their own traffic.

St. Pancras Station, December 2001

These difficulties didn't hinder the expansion plans of the Midland Railway in the capital and the company opened its own goods depot which located to the West of The Great Northern Railway's own goods yards at King's Cross. This gave the Midland Railway a firm base for both the distribution and goods traffic.

Eventually a Parliamentary Bill was sought for the M.R. to build its own forty nine and three quarter mile line into the capital. Extensive clearance of slum dwellings in an area called Agar Town for the proposed site at St. Pancras was necessary and even the relatively new church of St. Luke had to be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere.

William Barlow, who had worked with Joseph Paxton on the design of the building for the Great Exhibition of 1851, created a superb train shed with a single span of 243 ft, the structure being over 689 feet long and over 100 ft above ground level at its apex. Much of the detail work was carried out by R.M. Ordish. The station opened for traffic on the 1st of October 1868.

William Barlow's 240 ft span train shed.

The station frontage and Midland Grand Hotel

When the station first opened, there station frontage remained to be completed. The Midland Grand Hotel was still to built in from of the train shed. A competition was held for the design of the hotel and it was won by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

Work was started to complete the buildings in 1863. The company spared no effort in the execution of Scott's grand design and to this day it remains as an unspoiled monument to high Victorian Gothic and the pride and aspirations of the Midland Railway. The hotel opened for business on the 5th of May 1873.

The station is entered through an imposing archway under a 55 ft. wide tower. The booking hall was completed in 1869 and is lit by 6 pairs of arch windows.

The entrance archway

The booking hall

Fine detail abounds and it is one of the minor miracles of the 20th century is that the building has not been despoiled by modern development although some concessions to modern requirements have had to be made.

Architectural column detail and roof vaulting in the main entrance

The porte cochere at St. Pancras

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