[This was written in early 2004] Mention of St Pancras prompts me to write about the edifice in front of the train shed. As everyone knows, the former Midland Hotel (designed in 1865 by Sir George Gilbert Scott and built from 1867 to 1874) is one of Britain's finest Victorian Gothic monuments. Following external renovation the outside looks fairly pristine, except for some tell-tale signs of decay at ground level. However, how many of the people who see its polychrome façade towering above Euston Road realise that the inside is utterly derelict? Almost none of the original fittings remain, except for some Victorian bathrooms, a pile of carpets, a couple of marble fireplaces and the Italianate fresco in the alcove on the main landing of the grand staircase.
The official line is that the building is too expensive to insure against fire damage. One hopes that it will nevertheless become a hotel again one day if the financial problems can be resolved. Meanwhile, it is scandalous that the crowning glory of Britain's Victorian railway architecture is in a parlous state of abandonment and decay, and right in the middle of the capital city! Ceilings have fallen in, floorboards have rotted away, paint peels off and wallpaper hangs in shreds. Traces of the original gas lighting arrangements remain, but electricity is totally absent from much of the building. The old wooden-box lifts have collapsed in their shafts. Time has even mellowed the terrible official vandalism perpetrated in the 1960s when the hotel rooms were converted into offices. And at any moment the whole building could be totally destroyed by fire!
But there are some positive aspects to this sorry story. The ghosts of the Midland Railway prowl the stairwells of its one-time Grand Hotel en masse. Each floor has a spectacularly long corridor, shrouded in a mysterious penumbra, and the windows of the rooms that flank it give breathtaking views of William H. Barlow's 74-metre wide train-shed arch (from both within and above it), while some look across to the adjacent King's Cross station. There is probably no ambience Britain today that so intensely conveys the physical sensation of experiencing the great Victorian railway. It lacks only the sound, smell and sight of steam.
History and the railway authorities have not been kind to Scott's masterpiece. It is an idiosyncratic building, grand as a fairy castle on the outside and tailored to the humble commercial traveller within. But it is also the consummate monument to the steam age. A unique opportunity exists to preserve a vital piece of the atmosphere of the Railway Age: will it be taken?
The official line is that the building is too expensive to insure against fire damage. One hopes that it will nevertheless become a hotel again one day if the financial problems can be resolved. Meanwhile, it is scandalous that the crowning glory of Britain's Victorian railway architecture is in a parlous state of abandonment and decay, and right in the middle of the capital city! Ceilings have fallen in, floorboards have rotted away, paint peels off and wallpaper hangs in shreds. Traces of the original gas lighting arrangements remain, but electricity is totally absent from much of the building. The old wooden-box lifts have collapsed in their shafts. Time has even mellowed the terrible official vandalism perpetrated in the 1960s when the hotel rooms were converted into offices. And at any moment the whole building could be totally destroyed by fire!
But there are some positive aspects to this sorry story. The ghosts of the Midland Railway prowl the stairwells of its one-time Grand Hotel en masse. Each floor has a spectacularly long corridor, shrouded in a mysterious penumbra, and the windows of the rooms that flank it give breathtaking views of William H. Barlow's 74-metre wide train-shed arch (from both within and above it), while some look across to the adjacent King's Cross station. There is probably no ambience Britain today that so intensely conveys the physical sensation of experiencing the great Victorian railway. It lacks only the sound, smell and sight of steam.
History and the railway authorities have not been kind to Scott's masterpiece. It is an idiosyncratic building, grand as a fairy castle on the outside and tailored to the humble commercial traveller within. But it is also the consummate monument to the steam age. A unique opportunity exists to preserve a vital piece of the atmosphere of the Railway Age: will it be taken?
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