St Pancras Hotel, London

click photo to enlarge
George Gilbert Scott was one of the most prolific and able of Britain's Victorian architects. He came from an architectural dynasty and is sometimes referred to as "the middle Scott" to distinguish him from his similarly named father and son. In the 1860s he had many projects underway including three of national importance - the Foreign Office, the Albert Memorial and St Pancras railway station and hotel. Scott's office trained many architects who went on to achieve fame in their own right but he kept close control of all that passed through the firm, and ensured that the high standards that characterised his work was maintained.

St Pancras railway station on Euston Road was the London terminus for the Midland Railway. Scott's Gothic-based design incorporated the engine sheds and platforms (the latter designed by William Henry Barlow) as well as the rooms needed for the station and the Midland Hotel that fronted the building. The functional engine sheds and the elaborate Gothic brickwork, towers and spires admirably convey the Victorian fascination with and ambivalence about buildings as art as well as the allure of new technology and engineering. My photograph shows a large part of the main elevation facing Euston road, but doesn't include the curved wing out of view on the left of the frame.

I've tried for a photograph of this elevation before but haven't produced anything that satisfies me. On a recent visit I decided that the ornate lamp post might be a suitable "anchor" for an asymmetrical composition, and so it proved.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: St Pancras Hotel, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (108mm - 30mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

St Pancras before the rain

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken from in front of King's Cross railway station in London: in fact, from the space in the foreground of yesterday's photograph. We were waiting for a train to take us home and I'd noticed that a stormy sky was gathering above this part of London. Opportunities of that sort are to be seized and so I walked around looking for a shot or two. I missed the zig-zag of lightning that flashed near the clock tower but did get this image of the dark grey clouds as they gathered above the buildings. In the photograph you can see the side of the St Pancras Hotel and on the right of it the glazed train sheds.

One of the things I like about a big city is the pools of light that make evening photography so appealing. It's something that isn't found in a country village and I always relish a visit to London that gives me opportunities to be out and about when the daylight is fading.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: A Gathering Storm, St Pancras Hotel, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

St Pancras at night

click photo to enlarge
Earlier this year, in May, I posted a photograph of the train shed at St Pancras station in London. Today's photograph shows the same location, from a slightly different point of view, at night. What the earlier photograph doesn't reveal is that the shot was taken through the glass wall that separates the Eurostar trains from the public areas of the building. The image above does show that through the three reflected lights that can be seen in front of the illuminated girders of the roof.

Each time I step into this station I look up in awe at the train shed roof of 1868 that was designed by William Henry Barlow. Its unbroken span was the largest in the world at the time it was built, and even in the twenty-first century, a time of architectural megastructures, it retains the power to impress. I quickly snapped this shot before we went into the nearby Booking Office Bar in St Pancras Hotel, captivated by the light and shade and grateful for the two silhouetted figures that gave the scene focus and a sense of scale. Incidentally the shot was taken with my Samyang 12mm f2 (24mm/35mm equivalence), a manual focus lens that I have had for a couple of months and which has become a firm favourite.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:5000
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

St Pancras station train shed

click photo to enlarge
It's a testament to the engineering skills, vision and achievement of the Victorians that so much of the infrastructure that they created still serves us today. Our large towns and cities, for example, still depend to a very great extent on the sewers that they constructed, and the essence of the railway system is almost wholly a creation of the nineteenth century.

I was reminded of this the other day when I walked through the arch under St Pancras Hotel in London and stepped onto the platform where the Eurostar trains were were lined up. What caught my eye wasn't the sleek elegance of the shiny locomotives and their carriages, but the enormous, soaring, single-span arch of the engine shed. This structure was the work of the engineer, William Henry Barlow (1812-1902) assisted by Rowland Mason Ordish (1824-1886). It is slightly pointed, creates a space just over 245 feet (75 metres) wide, and was the largest such building in the world at the time it was erected in 1868. The materials used were wrought iron, timber and glass. Each of the 24 main ribs are six feet deep and are created from a lattice-work of metal that lends the whole structure a light, almost insubstantial appearance. That it continues in service today is a testament to its strength and the skill of those who designed and built it. In the fifteenth year of the twenty first century we are used to being impressed by large, new, exciting structures - earlier in the day I had been looking at 1 St Mary Axe (the "Gherkin") and the new Broadgate development - and it's good, I think, that the buildings that awed the Victorians are still capable of inspiring that feeling in us today.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On