The year was 1865. And while construction continued for the Saint Pancras Railway Station in London, England, it was decided to build a hotel inside the complex railway station. And with that in mind, the The Midland Railway Company started a contest for the best blueprint for a one hundred and fifty (150) room hotel to be build inside and next to the Saint Pancras Railway Station. The winner of the contest was the The Midland Grand Hotel. The three hundred (300) room hotel was bigger and more complex than the two hundred and fifty (250) hotel that was originally desired, but Sir George Gilbert Scott's blueprint was accepted anyway. Born in Parsonage, Gawcott, Buckinghamshire on July 13 1811 and died in Kensington, London, England, Sir George Gilbert Scott's image of the perfect hotel became a reality on 1873 (Or rather the eastern half was completed and open). The rest of the hotel was completed and open on 1876.
With fireproof constructions, hydraulic elevators and the frequent use of concrete was rare and unknown for hotel construction in the nineteenth century making The Midland Grand Hotel a unique place to be living. However, there wasn't indoor plumbing and the use of servant labor instead of indoor pipes was too costly and labor extensive when newer hotels had indoor plumbing already built in. Because of the lack of indoor plumbing, The Midland Grand Hotel closed on 1935 after being purchased from the Midland Railway Company by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company in 1922. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company used the Midland Grand Hotel as railway offices and renamed The St Pancras Chambers. Keeping the building clean and neat wasn't a priority. As a result, St Pancras Chambers fell into ruin and ghetto grunge looking from 1935 to the day the building was closed (And possibly condemned) on the 1980's. Needless to say, the repainting over priceless impossible to replace nineteenth century era wallpaper was the least of the renovation priorities of the possibly condemned derelict property. Keep in mind that indoor pipes still hasn't been installed as late as the 1980's.
Poet laureate John Betjeman saved the old Midland Grand Hotel from being demolished in the 1960's. However, it really wasn't until the year 2004 that effort was made to reopen the old Midland Grand Hotel under the brand new identity name of St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel. The rebuilt renovated hotel reduced it's hotel rooms from three hundred (300) to two hundred and forty-four. Also included are ballroom, exercise rooms, dinning can be found in two alcohol bars and two restaurants with twenty meeting rooms and conference centers for traveling businessmen. The Manhattan Loft Corporation owns sixty-eight (68) luxury apartments in the upper floors of the lavish luxury hotel complex.
And this is what the St. Pancras Railway Station which is imbedded inside the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel looks like...
A statue honoring Poet laureate John Betjeman's efforts to save the Midland Grand Hotel from demolition despite being condemmed and derelict in the 1960's.
The St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel and the embedded attached St. Pancras Railway Station was the setting for the Spice Girls music video for their song Wannabe in 1996. Certain scenes in the film I Give it a Year involving Anna Faris as Chloe and Simon Baker as Guy was filmed in the St. Pancras Railroad Station. Marriott International currently owns the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel. March 14, 2011 was the official grand opening of the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel.
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