The Midland Grand Hotel

In 1865 the Midland Railway Company held a competition for a hotel to be constructed at its new London Terminus - St Pancreas.

The winning design was by George Gilbert Scott. It opened in 1873 and had 300 rooms, and was equipped with all modern conveniences:
* hydraulic lifts
* concrete floors
* revolving doors

The hotel closed in 1935 by which time it was seen as old fashioned. It became St Pancras Chambers and was used as railway offices by BR and their subsidiary British Transport Hotels (BTH). When I visited it in the 1980s it was in a sorry state with lowered ceilings and its magnificent Victorian decoration covered over.

After Railway Privatisation, planning permission was given for redevelopment into a new hotel with strict conditions with regard to its restoration.

It re-opened on 5 may 2011, exactly 138 years after its original opening.

It has been magnificently restored and it is like visiting a pre-Raphaelite painting of Camelot.