St Pancras Station (Wonders of the World) - Hardcover

A marvellous piece of social, aesthetic and technological history... It is impossible to praise Bradley's book too highly. (A.N. Wilson Daily Telegraph)

Brilliantly and with deft hand, Simon Bradley makes sense of it all... Fabulous. (Sunday Telegraph)

There is nothing in this book that I am not happy to know; much more of it is valuable to know; all of it is a pleasure to know. (Spectator)

[A] masterpiece of historical context...Immensely readable. (Sunday Times)

Take him along on that swift trip to Paris. (Boyd Tonkin The Independent)

This fine book examines the history of both the church that gave the station its name and the railway terminus...Unexpectedly compelling. (Daily Mail)

...(a) sprightly social, technological and architectural history...Most entertaining... (Evening Standard)

A marvellous piece of social, aesthetic and technological
history... It is impossible to praise Bradley's book too highly.

(A.N. Wilson Daily Telegraph)

Brilliantly and with deft hand, Simon Bradley makes sense of it
all... Fabulous.

(Sunday Telegraph)

In 1866 the ancient churchyard of St Pancras was excavated for the new Midlands Railway line into London. Both the train shed and the Midland Grand Hotel, the constituent parts of the new station, are outstanding structures: the train shed for its structural daring and drama, the hotel for its heroic attempt to adapt Gothic architecture for the requirements of modernity. In 2002 more of the churchyard was excavated as part of the station's transformation for the Channel Tunnel terminus. The work, to be finished in 2007, will reinvent St Pancras as the main hub for rail travellers between the UK and Europe. In the years between, the station has flourished but has also come close to being demolished. Simon Bradley examines this fascinating story of changes in taste and of our understanding of the past. It is a reminder of the revolutionary effects of the railway and of how the innovations of the Industrial Revolution have weathered subsequent technological change. St Pancras demands to be understood for the continuing thrall in which great urban monuments can hold us. The Wonders of the World is a series of books that focuses on some of the world's most famous sites or monuments. Their names will be familiar to almost everyone: they have achieved iconic stature and are loaded with a fair amount of mythological baggage. These monuments have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim, through the skill and stature of the writers, is to get something much more enlightening, stimulating, even controversial, than straightforward histories or guides.