ABOUT THE TOWER
The Clock Tower sits at the top of St. Pancras Chambers, the modern name for what was built as the Midland Grand Hotel. a railway terminus hotel which was constructed at St. Pancras by the Midland Railway from 1868 to 1876, with the hotel first opening in 1873. Today's St Pancras Renaissance Hotel occupies just the first and parts of the second and third floors of the old hotel, with most bedrooms in a 21st-century extension down Midland Road. Apartments fill the second to fifth floors of the old hotel building.
The architect was George Gilbert Scott, the great proponent of the style known as the Gothic Revival, a Victorian style with echoes back to the Gothic era of the middle ages. The town hall at Armentières in north-eastern France was the inspiration behind much of the building.
Watch the excellent video by Sam Lane
samlanephotography for the Londonist.
The Apartment
The apartment has two double bedrooms – a master bedroom and a guest bedroom, each with en suite bathroom. The guest bedroom also has its own kitchen, sitting area, sofa and TV. The master bedroom sits in the base of the clock tower with a mezzanine bathroom up a staircase and hanging over the bed.
Upstairs, there is a large kitchen/dining room and the clock tower room, 10 metres in height, which sits immediately beneath the clock chamber. A rickety metal staircase leads directly up to the clock maintenance rooms. The original winding room for the mechanical clock still sits half way up the tower room, though today the clock is powered by a small electric motor. The 10m high weights box, the main practical reason for the height of the room, is retained, though for ventilation and ducting purposes rather than for the weights.
The Clock Tower room within the spire of St Pancras is our living room, with views over the local Kings Cross area, the City of London and beyond. It comes to life for musical recitals, for dinners around a large table underneath the clock or for artistic performances.
The Clock Tower
The Clock Tower is within St Pancras Chambers, the modern name for the former Midland Grand Hotel. a railway terminus hotel which was constructed at St Pancras by the Midland Railway from 1868 to 1876, with the hotel opening in 1873.
The architect was George Gilbert Scott, the great proponent of the style known as the Gothic Revival, a Victorian style with echoes back to the gothic era of the middle ages. The town hall at Armentières in north-eastern France was the inspiration behind much of the building.
This large room – 10m high - is actually a false bell-chamber, built in to the tower to give height to the spire above. However, as the building was a railway hotel rather than a cathedral or town hall, it never actually held any bells.
It was originally a dark storeroom- until 2008 the windows we have today had wooden slatted louvres like are to be found in a true bell-tower. Those louvres were replaced with slatted glass panes with dappled markings on them to make them look a bit like louvres when you look up from the street below.
Within the room high on one wall is the old winding box where the clock could be wound weekly, lifting a heavyweight up the tall box on one side of the room to power the clock for a week.
The room has glancing views out to St Paul's Cathedral, the Shard of Glass (western Europe's highest building) and the City of London, as well as King's Cross Station. At the current time, the spire above is used by a pair of wild peregrine falcons who feed off pigeons. We no longer have problems with pigeons on the balconies. We just hope that there are sufficiently many local pigeons for the falcons to remain in residence.
The Kitchen/Dining Room
The apartment's main kitchen has been set up with a range of appliances from gaggenau.
High quality dining is delivered for us by chef Martin Milesi and his colleagues in unalondon.
A pair of stained glass windows were salvaged from a 19th-century house in Lancashire. The central roundels depict Aesop's fable of the fox and the stork, the stork unable to eat off a plate offered to him by the fox and the fox incapable of consuming the contents of a vase when he accepted the stork's return invitation to dinner: the moral being that tricksters can expect trickery in return.
The Guest Suite
This bedroom suite contains its own kitchen and en suite bathroom plus a sitting area overlooking Kings Cross and is where we like to welcome our friends to stay with us. The views of the new Kings Cross Square are particularly mesmerising and the window is the perfect place to stand and gaze at all the ant-like people wandering around below.
View the timelapse night-time video of the traffic moving in the Square below.
The Master Suite
The master bedroom beneath the Tower is set in the lowest part of the clock tower. The shower and bath here are in an en suite bathroom up on a mezzanine floor above the bed which makes for a very unusual setup. From the bath one can watch passengers going in and out of Kings Cross, but they cannot see in from the station concourse.
Apps
There is an interesting App for the iPhone created by Guardian Newspapers, whose London headquarters is nearby at Kings Place in York Way. Dozens of stopping points are dotted around the district, at each one of which you can hear via the App a local person or historian talking about the area. One of us features at the clock tower location. Go to Guardian
to download it.
What Others Say
"Tompkins excitement is understandable. The actuary who works in the City may well have the most thrilling address in Britain"
"La plus insolite. Clock Tower à Londres. Vue imprenable sur les monuments londoniens, à deux minutes de l'Eurostar...», ce pourrait être l’annonce pour cet appartement unique, situé dans la tour de l’horloge de la gare Saint-Pancras."
Paris Match, 16th April 2013
"the space makes full use of the original beams and Scott's stonework and brickwork brought down from the Midlands by the Midland Railway company"
Alice Grahame, The Guardian, 15th September 2014.
"This is No Ordinary Apartment"
Business Insider UK, November 2016
Jonathan Glancey, The Guardian. 2nd May 2010.
"Whatever my expectations were, they were surpassed. The building was amazing. The view was brilliant. The host, the chef, such passionate people."
Jenny Hyde, Writer. 2014.
Paris Match, 16th April 2013
"the space makes full use of the original beams and Scott's stonework and brickwork brought down from the Midlands by the Midland Railway company"
Alice Grahame, The Guardian, 15th September 2014.
"This is No Ordinary Apartment"
Business Insider UK, November 2016
