Even before the St Pancras Hotel in London was completed, the press began pouring dishwater on the building’s architecture. The opulent neo-Gothic forms of the hotel, located by the railway station, were to the critics of the time outdated and excessive. From the outside, the building resembled a magnate’s castle, while inside it concealed even more lavish rooms and staircases. However, despite the criticism and serious plans for demolition, the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel still impresses visitors today with its rich Victorian-era ornamentation.
Railway kingdom castle
Before the First World War, the English railway was owned by private investors. From the 1840s, the Midland Railway Company began to play an important role, with its tracks stretching across England’s major cities. 20 years after the company was founded, the owners decided to build a flagship station and hotel in London to reflect their railway empire.
The competition announced in 1865 was specially extended so that the company’s favourite, architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, could submit his design. The Midland Railway Board praised the architect for his bold neo-Gothic buildings. Scott’s most outstanding works include the castle-like building of Glasgow University, the Albert Memorial and the rebuilt King’s College Chapel in London.
60 million bricks and 9,000 tonnes of cast iron were used to build the hotel. The entire complex consists of a massive station and hotel, with the platforms tucked behind it. Interestingly, the metal roof covering the platforms was at the time the largest structure of its kind in the world. For Scott and the engineers, metal skeletons were the modern method to construct sturdy and huge structures. It is worth noting that the hotel was originally called the Midland Grand Hotel and the name St Pancras Renaissance Hotel was given in the 21st century.
Victorian splendour
The façade begins with an 85-metre tall clock tower and ends with a curved hotel section. The style of the edifice is a complex combination of neo-Gothic with elements of Flemish, Byzantine and Renaissance architecture. The clock tower, for example, is decorated with turrets, florets, vimpergas and jigs, elements typical of the Gothic style. The clock itself is somewhat reminiscent of a rosette, and the biforias with masquerades extending below make the tower look like it has been pulled out of a 13th century church.
The rest of the façade repeats the neo-Gothic forms, but is not lacking in variety. From the wall, there are bay windows with Renaissance consoles and balusters extending along the roof. Also worth noting are the different types of arches protecting the windows. The St Pancras hotel features both Gothic pointed arches and solid arches. Importantly, the cusps of the arches appear in brick and stone as in a Byzantine palace. It is the high quality Nottingham-fired brick, local granite and sandstone that are the main building blocks of the hotel.
Such a profusion of forms makes the eye overlook other interesting details. The City of London coat of arms and the symbols of the Midland Railway are carved into the groynes of the arches. The building is so richly decorated that one can spend hours admiring the mythical, floral and animal symbols tucked away in the Victorian façade. The hotel’s façade is only a harbinger of the opulence waiting inside.
The knight’s chamber
Behind a portal with heavy granite columns and a cross vaulted ceiling hides a public lobby with a bar. The exposed metal roof construction is a reminder of the new industrial age, which is at odds with the medieval Gothic. Today, the Marriott hotel’s under-the-radar offering includes modern rooms located in the Barlow Wing section and luxury suites located in the historic Chambers Wing section. It is the latter section of the St Pancras Hotel that transports guests to a Victorian castle.
The most representative area of the entire hotel is the staircase, which itself resembles a cathedral. Granite columns hold up sandstone friezes, while stunning paintings stretch above them. The red walls are adorned with more than 2,300 golden lily flowers and several impressive polychromes. The paintings depict medieval knights embodying specific virtues. Heraldic symbols and mythical creatures such as viragoes also appear on the cage. All symbols are not coincidental and allude to the coats of arms of the English Midlands.
As you ascend the wide staircase, it is hard not to notice the cross-ribbed vault. With its gold stars and blue colouring, the ceiling resembles a sky separated by beige servants. It is worth noting that, in addition to the medieval details, the staircase features modern cast-iron elements supporting the staircase. The corridors leading to the more expensive flats are also kept in a similar style. Colourful polychromes adorn the walls and ceilings, while metal lamps and grilles recall the Victorian industrial age. It is worth noting that the width of the staircase is associated with the voluminous ball gowns.
The final showpiece room is the 1869 Booking Office restaurant. The room was formerly used as a ticket office, but in the 21st century it was organised as a restaurant with a bar. Warm wooden stucco decorates the walls around the former ticket office. It is worth noting that the building benefited from an age of innovative technology such as hydraulic lifts, telephone, electric service bells and revolving doors.
An underrated masterpiece
The hotel opened in 1873 and all construction was completed three years later. From the start, the press was negative about Scott’s building. The architect was a master of his own Neo-Gothic style, but by the early 1870s this style had gone out of fashion. Such enormous splendour of decoration was overwhelming and simply ugly to some. Even other architects attacked Scott for his incoherent design. However, Scott did not live to see further criticism of his work, as he died in 1878.
In later years, some people finally began to appreciate the unique St Pancras Station with its hotel. The beauty of the building overshadowed nearby King’s Cross Station and other stations located to the North of the city centre. Despite this, it is fair to say that the St Pancras hotel was an underrated gem of London for decades. It is worth mentioning that this underrated work was also the site of the death of one of the architect’s sons, Gilbert Scott junior.
The 20th century was not very indulgent to the building. In the 1920s the state unified the railway system and the Midland Railway was disbanded. The hotel became untenable and such opulent décor required a great deal of money for repairs. It is worth noting that the railway company originally wanted the hotel to have 150 rooms, but Scott eventually designed an edifice to accommodate as many as 300 rooms. In 1935, the hotel closed to guests and opened to British Railway office workers.
An era saved
In the 1960s, the railwaymen wanted to demolish the station because of King’s Cross station a few dozen metres away. The stations would have been unified, making transport easier. Fortunately, thanks to appeals from Jane Hughes Fawcett working with the Victorian Society, plans to demolish the station were stopped. A series of refurbishments took place in the 1990s and the hotel reopened in 2011 as the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. The interiors have been carefully restored by Welsh architects from Aedas studio. As a matter of interest, it is worth mentioning that the building has been the set of many films such as ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ and ‘Batman: Inception’.
Gilbert Scott’s design revolutionised British architects’ approach to the railways. Instead of aesthetically pleasing but small stations, extravagant edifices began to be built, which are still stunning in their beauty today. In turn, the Victorian style reminded people of the beauty of bygone centuries and established itself firmly in the architectural pantheon. Another great example of this style is the Crossness Pumping Station, which you can read about HERE.
Source: Gilbert Scott
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