Victorian Gingerbread – St Pancras Railway Station, Euston Road, London, England

In 1865 the Midland Railway Company held a competition for the design of a 150-bed hotel to be constructed next to its railway station, St Pancras, which was still under construction at the time. Eleven designs were submitted, including one by George Gilbert Scott, which, at 300 rooms, was much bigger and more expensive than the original specifications. Despite this, the company liked his plans and construction began. The east wing opened in 1873, and the rest followed in the spring of 1876. The hotel was expensive, with costly fixtures including a grand staircase, rooms with gold leaf walls and a fireplace in every room. It had many innovative features such as hydraulic lifts, concrete floors, revolving doors and fireproof floor constructions, though (as was the convention of the time) none of the rooms had bathrooms. The hotel was taken over by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1922 before closing in 1935, by which time its utilities were outdated and too costly to maintain, requiring armies of servants to carry chamber pots, tubs, bowls and spittoons.

After closing as a hotel, the building was renamed St Pancras Chambers and used as railway offices, latterly for British Rail. British Rail had hoped to demolish it, but was thwarted in a high-profile campaign by Jane Hughes Fawcett and her colleagues at the Victorian Society, a historic preservationist organization founded in part to preserve the Victorian railway buildings. Officials dubbed Jane Fawcett the "furious Mrs. Fawcett" for her unceasing efforts, and in 1967, the Hotel and the St. Pancras station received Grade I listed status. The building continued its use as rail offices, until the 1980s when it failed fire safety regulations and was shut down. In the 1990's the exterior was restored and made structurally sound at a cost of around £10 million.

Planning permission was granted in 2004 for the building to be redeveloped into a new hotel. The main public rooms of the old Midland Grand were restored, along with some of the bedrooms. The former driveway for taxis entering St. Pancras station, passing under the main tower of the building, was converted into the hotel's lobby. In order to cater for the more modern expectations of guests, a new bedroom wing was constructed on the western side of the Barlow train shed. As redeveloped the hotel contains 244 bedrooms, 2 restaurants, 2 bars, a health and leisure centre, a ballroom, and 20 meeting and function rooms. The architects for the redevelopment were Aedas RHWL. At the same time, the upper floors of the original building were redeveloped as 68 apartments by the Manhattan Loft Corporation. The St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel opened on 14 March 2011 to guests; however, the formal Grand Opening was on 5 May – exactly 138 years after its original opening in 1873.