After escaping planned demolition in the 1960s, the complex was renovated and expanded from 2001 to 2007 at a cost of £800 million with a ceremony attended by Queen Elizabeth II and extensive publicity introducing it as a public space. A security-sealed terminal area was constructed for Eurostar services to continental Europe via High Speed 1 and the Channel Tunnel, with platforms for domestic trains to the north and south-east of England. The restored station has 15 platforms, a shopping centre and a bus station, and is served by London Underground‘s King’s Cross St. Pancras station. St Pancras is owned by London and Continental Railways, along with the adjacent urban regeneration area known as King’s Cross Central, and is one of 19 stations managed by Network Rail.
The St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel occupies parts of the original Midland Grand Hotel, including the main public rooms, together with a new bedroom wing on the western side of the Barlow train shed. The upper levels of the original building have been redeveloped as apartments by the Manhattan Loft Corporation. The hotel held its grand opening on 5 May 2011, exactly 138 years after its original opening in 1873.
St Pancras contains four groups of platforms on two levels, separated by the main concourse at ground level. The below-surface group contains through platforms A and B, and the upper level has three groups of terminal platforms: domestic platforms 1–4 and 11–13 on each side of international platforms 5–10. Platforms A, B and 1–4 connect to the Midland Main Line one kilometre north of the station, while platforms 5–13 lead to High Speed 1; there is no connection between the two lines, except for a maintenance siding outside the station. The longer international platforms, used by Eurostar, extend a considerable distance southwards into Barlow’s train shed, whilst the other platforms terminate at the southern end of the 2005 extension. The international platforms do not occupy the full width of the Barlow train shed, and sections of the floor area have been opened up to provide natural light to the new ground-level concourse below. Arrival and departure lounges lie below these platforms, and are reached from the international concourse. The concourse, known as The Arcade, was fashioned from the original station undercroft and runs the length of the Barlow train shed to the western side of the arrival and departure lounges. The southern end of the international concourse links to the western ticket hall of King’s Cross St Pancras tube station. The domestic platforms, both above and below ground level, are reached through a street-level domestic concourse named The Market, which runs east to west at the point where the old and new parts of the station meet: the domestic and international concourses meet at a right angle, forming a “T” shape. The main pedestrian entrance is at the eastern end of the domestic concourse, where a subway enables pedestrians to reach King’s Cross station and the northern ticket hall of the tube station. It runs under Pancras Road from the eastern entrance of the domestic concourse to the new northern ticket hall of King’s Cross St Pancras tube station (opened November 2009) and the new concourse for King’s Cross railway station (opened March 2012).
St Pancras is often termed the “cathedral of the railways”, and includes two of the most celebrated structures built in Britain in the Victorian era. The train shed, completed in 1868 by the engineer William Henry Barlow, was the largest single-span structure built up to that time. The frontage of the station is formed by the former Midland Grand Hotel, designed by George Gilbert Scott, an example of Victorian Gothic architecture, now occupied by the five-star Renaissance London Hotel and apartments.
The terminal is one of relatively few railway stations in England to feature multilingual signage; all notices are written in English and French. Ashford International station has similar bilingual signs. Other stations with foreign-language signs include Southall, which has signs in Punjabi, Wallsend Metro station (Latin), and Moreton-in-Marsh (Japanese). In March 2014, the station’s public relations team commissioned a study of mispronounced words, reportedly as a result of passengers referring to the station as “St Pancreas”.
