Before the Station

Before St Pancras station there was a graveyard, and the bodies from this graveyard had to be moved to make way for the Midland Railway line - some 8,000 of them. You can still see St Pancras New Church and its more recent graveyard on the Euston Road. Here you'll find a tree against which the old gravestones from the old graveyard have been piled up (see below) - it's called the Hardy Tree as Thomas Hardy in his role as architect was overseer of the move.

The Station and Hotel

Built 18 feet above the Regent's canal, the main train shed (which was an engineering wonder in itself), and the over-the-top Victorian gothic extravaganza which is the Midland Grand Hotel opened in 1873. The combination of soot, lack of bathrooms, and competition from newer hotels in the West End meant that it was loss-making for years and was eventually turned into railway offices. It escaped demolition in the 1960s when it was to be replaced by a concrete office block and sports hall, largely down to a lastminute campaign led by poet laureate John Betjeman. It will soon become a five star en-suite bathroomed Marriott hotel, however, following the redevelopment of the entire area and I for one can't wait to see inside it.

The Hotel in Films

It's appeared in From Hell, Chaplin, Richard III, and Batman Begins. And it was the location of the Spice Girls’ Wannabe video. (For more London film locations see London in Films.)

The Station and Hotel Today

Much excitement as the Eurostar arrived 14th November 2007. In the space beneath the station where 28 million pints of beer could at one time hae been stored, and above on the station concourse - there is the world's longest champagne bar, gastropub and brasserie, and eventually a daily farmer's market. 60,000,000 bricks were used in the original construction and an additional 16 million have been kilned to build a new extension to the hotel. For some details on the hoo-ha surrounding the grand opening, see News.