St Pancras
The London railway station has two faces: a Gothic Revival hotel in red brick facing the street and a vast train shed of iron and glass behind. When it was built, the shed was the largest space in the world without internal supports. The station was saved from demolition and is today the gateway to Eurostar.
The Midland Railway needed its own station in London and built it in 1866–1868. The engineer William Henry Barlow designed the train shed, which was completed in 1868. It spans about 73 metres without columns and was then the largest span in the world. The tracks lie high, a storey above a basement where beer from Burton was stored, and the basement columns are spaced to the size of the beer barrels. In front of the shed the Midland Grand Hotel was built to designs by George Gilbert Scott, who won a competition in 1865. The hotel opened in 1873 and was completed in 1876.
The hotel is built of red brick from Nottingham with details in sandstone and granite. It has a tall clock tower, pointed arches and gables in a mixture of English, Italian and French Gothic, which Scott had studied. Inside were a grand staircase and a lavishly decorated dining room. The train shed behind is a pointed arch of iron and glass, contrasting with the hotel’s heavy walls. The station shows two sides of Victorian architecture: the historical costume of the revival styles and the new materials of engineering.
The hotel closed in 1935 and was used as offices. In the 1960s demolition was planned, but a campaign led by the poet John Betjeman saved the building, which was listed in 1967. It was converted and opened in 2007 as the terminus for high-speed trains to the Continent, and the hotel reopened in 2011. St Pancras has become an example of how Victorian architecture, long despised, has been appreciated anew.