St Pancras railway station
railway station terminus in London, England, UK
St Pancras International ( ) is a major central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminus for Eurostar services between the United Kingdom and Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It provides East Midlands Railway services to Leicester, Corby, Derby, Sheffield, Luton Airport Parkway, and Nottingham on the Midland Main Line (or MML), Southeastern high-speed trains to Kent via Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International, and Thameslink cross-London services to Bedford, Cambridge, Peterborough, Brighton, Horsham and Gatwick Airport. It stands between the British Library, the Regent's Canal and London King's Cross railway station. Beneath both main line stations is King's Cross St Pancras tube station on the London Underground; combined, they form one of the country's largest and busiest transport hubs.
The station was constructed by the Midland Railway (MR), to connect its extensive rail network, across the Midlands and North of England, to a dedicated line into London. After rail traffic problems following the 1862 International Exhibition, the MR decided to build a connection from Bedford to London with its own terminus. The station was designed by William Henry Barlow, with wrought iron pillars supporting a single-span roof. At 689 feet (210 m) long by 240 feet (73 m) wide, and 100 feet (30 m) high, it was then the largest enclosed space in the world. Following the station's opening 1 October 1868, the MR built the Midland Grand Hotel on the station's façade.
“St Pancras railway station” enters the record as railway station terminus in London, England, UK. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pancras, railway and station can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“St Pancras railway station” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Pancras, railway and station provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q720102. Authority coordinates are 51.530, -0.125. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1862 and 1868.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “St Pancras railway station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.