St Pancras Station

London, England
Built between 1863 and 1865 for the Midland Railway, St. Pancras Station has been described as the epitome of the railroad buildings that evolved following advances in iron technology in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was one of a number of London stations, including Victoria and Charing Cross, erected during the 1860s railroad boom, when national and international travel was becoming more popular. St. Pancras established Midlands footing in the capital; coming as it did after other companies had erected their London terminals, it was deliberately intended to impress by its scale and architectural style. Its substantial train shed, designed by company engineer William Henry Barlow (1812 1902) with R. M. Ordish, achieved the widest single-arch span then built. This daring engineering accomplishment was unrivaled. Several years later, a grand Victorian Gothic, Revival hotel and terminus building was added to the front of the shed. Named the Midland Grand, it was designed by the eminent Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott (1811 1878) and constructed between 1868 and 1876. St. Pancras was built next to Kings Cross Station (1851 1852), the Great Northern Railways terminus designed by architect Lewis Cubitt. The dissimilar approach to the design of each station reveals a dilemma of the age the functional station building was celebrated as an engineering triumph and a demonstration of technological and structural progress but was not popularly, or professionally, accepted as real