“Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.” Sir John Betjeman
St. Pancras station opened in 1868. When built, it was the largest station roof in the world without internal supports. In 1873, the Midland Grand Hotel, designed by English Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott, was constructed on the station's façade. 📷 1895 - 1905.
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@DurhamWASP Saint Pancras was martyred twice. Once by Emperor Diocletian. And a second time by gothic revival architects.
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@DurhamWASP I'm a relic of the days when most people regarded high Victorian architecture as hideous. Which it is. Just not as hideous as most of what has replaced it.
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@DurhamWASP I pass St Pancras quite regularly and it never fails to gladden my heart. It really is stupendous!
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@DurhamWASP That curve in the building on the left hand side was designed that way so people couldn't see Kings Cross station as they walked up Euston Road. The Midland Railway's rivalry with the Northern Railway went to the extreme. It remains the greatest piece of railway architecture.
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@DurhamWASP I must say I would love a city break in that hotel but the prices are rather daunting🤣
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@DurhamWASP I think Betjeman was the greatest poet of his generation but he was not the sort of man who one goes to for his opinion on saints.
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@DurhamWASP The Booking Hall bar does an excellent dry Martini, doubt the Saint was as useful.
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@DurhamWASP And what better memorial could you hope for. No one would remember Master Pancras, except for a few scholars and the odd church goer, if it wasn't for the station.
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@DurhamWASP Had it not been for Youngs brewery using the basement for beer distribution there wouldn’t have been a building to save
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@DurhamWASP @oldlondonnow When passing, I often wonder of its impact on tourists from new World countries “Wow, they’ve got Hogwarts in the middle of London”
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@DurhamWASP Also the name of my primary school in Lewes, E Sussex. Was shocked when I learned there was a railway station as well!
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