St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel

On Euston Road, the former Midland Grand Hotel designed by George Gilbert Scott and opened in 1873 now houses the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, a luxury hotel in London. Closed in 1935 and nearly demolished in the 1960s, it reopened in 2011 after a restoration that returned its Gothic Revival facade, grand staircase and painted ceilings to use. It is one of the most prominent Victorian buildings in the city and the hotel attached to St Pancras International, the London terminus of Eurostar.

History

The Midland Railway built the hotel as the public face of its new London terminus. Scott won the competition in 1865 with a design more elaborate than the brief required, and the hotel opened on 5 May 1873, the west wing following in 1876. It had hydraulic lifts, known as ascending rooms, and a Ladies' Smoking Room described as the first room in Europe where women could smoke in public. It never had bathrooms in its bedrooms, a weakness that told against it as expectations changed, and it closed in 1935 to become railway offices under the name St Pancras Chambers.

In 1966 British Railways proposed demolishing the station and the hotel. A campaign led by the poet John Betjeman and the Victorian Society won Grade I listing for the building in 1967. It stood largely empty from the 1980s, and the Spice Girls filmed the video for Wannabe on its grand staircase in 1996. A restoration led by the developer Manhattan Loft Corporation with Marriott reopened the building as a hotel on 5 May 2011, 138 years to the day after the original opening, with private apartments in the upper floors.

Architecture and design

Scott's building is red brick with stone dressings, with a clock tower at the east end and a curved west wing following the line of Euston Road. The grand staircase rises through three floors under a vaulted ceiling painted with stars, with cast-iron balustrades and stencilled walls. The restoration recovered the painted decoration of the corridors and public rooms, including the Gallery and the former Ladies' Smoking Room, and turned the cab road under its glass roof into the lobby.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 245 rooms and suites: 38 suites in the Chambers wing, the original building, with ceilings up to five metres high, and 207 rooms in the Barlow House wing, named after William Henry Barlow, the engineer of the station's train shed.

Dining

The Booking Office 1869, in the former ticket hall of the station, is the hotel's bar and restaurant, with its original wooden ticket windows kept in place. The Hansom, the glass-roofed hall of the former cab entrance, serves breakfast, afternoon tea and drinks through the day. The hotel has four restaurants and bars in all.

Wellness

The spa on the lower ground floor includes a swimming pool in a tiled Victorian hall, treatment rooms and a fitness room.

Weddings and events

The Hansom, the former cab entrance under its glass roof, is used for large receptions and wedding dinners; the Ladies' Smoking Room and the Gallery take smaller dinners, ceremonies and meetings. The hotel is licensed for civil ceremonies, and the grand staircase is used for wedding photographs.

Location

The hotel stands on Euston Road between St Pancras International, with Eurostar, East Midlands and Thameslink services, and King's Cross station, served by six Underground lines and trains to the north. The British Library is next door and Bloomsbury begins across the road. By train from St Pancras, London Luton Airport is about 25 minutes away; London Heathrow takes about an hour by car or Underground.