Details “modelled on the Place de la Concorde”

Above: Camden Town Hall.

St Pancras station has been restored and reopened as the Eurostar terminus for trains to Brussels and Paris. I’m not sure what to make of the renovated structure - I prefer buildings in a melancholy state of decay, devoid of people, holding still and undisturbed atmospheres. About ten years ago I walked into the old Great Midland Hotel at St Pancreas (at the time comprising abandoned offices) and went up the staircase to the tatty grandeur of the second floor before being challenged and asked to leave.

I am looking forward to exploring properly the old Goods Yard at Kings Cross, now also in the course of redevelopment. I had an unofficial tour of the place before the development began. I have a hazy memory of going round the Milk Dock, the old soot-encrusted Railway Mission, the Rothschild mansions (seemingly tenanted by reformed squatters with a predilection for rainbow murals).

One of my favourite buildings in this part of London is Camden Town Hall. Such is the anathema felt towards Camden Council (a body that personifies the cry “political correctness gone mad”) that it is difficult to get people interested in what used to be the town hall of the old borough of St Pancras. The building was designed by A. J. Thomas (an assistant to Lutyens) and put up between 1934 and 1937.

The cramped site means that most people do not look at the building. It also suffers from the ebullient proximity of St Pancras station. But in its way it is a masterpiece (raised attics, giant Corinthian columns, details “modelled on the Place de la Concorde” etc).