Kings Cross

I’m often at Kings Cross, usually meeting Gary Spencer coming in from north Hertfordshire. The station is in the news a lot at the moment, being connected with the recent bombings in London. The station was also bombed by the IRA in late seventies or early eighties.

What most people don’t know is that you can still see evidence of the German bombing from the Second World War.

If you go to the east side of the station (the side adjacent to St Pancras) and walk along the platform you eventually come to a way-out that leads to the suburban platforms (where you catch the trains for Cambridge and Kings Lynn). Leaving the station by that entrance, walk out into the open and look upwards to the left. You will see that the range of Victorian offices (called East Side Offices) has a big gap in it, and the topmost floor on the left (overlooking the Great Northern Hotel) has just a wall of blackened wooden slats.

That whole top floor was cut off when the Luftwaffe bombed the station in the Second World War. The then railway authorities (this was pre-British Rail days) took the decision that it was too dangerous to try to get to the offices so they have just been left, exactly as they were when the bombs fell. I used to know someone who worked in East Side Offices, and he said occasionally maintenance people look into the floor, but basically it’s been left untouched.

I like to think that behind the wooden slats the corridor goes on, leading to range after range of big double offices filled with heavy desks (integral green leather tops), heavy bakelite telephones, big wall charts showing the wartime movement of munitions.




















(Above): basically it’s been left untouched.