Great Northern Hotel, London

Grade II listing:- Hotel. 1854, by Lewis Cubitt. Yellow stock brick with stucco dressings. Slate roof with pedimented dormers. Crescent shaped building. Concave main facade towards King's Cross Station, Euston Road (qv). EXTERIOR: 5 storeys, attic and basement. 18 windows wide; southern return 5 windows with slightly advanced central bay. Sixth and thirteenth bays slightly advanced with tripartite windows and stucco dressings; 1st and 2nd floors, triangular pediments and segmental pediments respectively. Below that to left hand side, the main entrance with cast-iron and wood portico; round-arched glazing. Round-arched ground floor openings with stucco keystones and impost bands. Plain stucco bands at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor levels. Other windows square-headed, 1st to 3rd floor with stucco architraves. Modillion cornice. Prominent slab chimney-stacks. Road facade similar. INTERIOR: not inspected. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron railings of geometric design to areas. HISTORICAL NOTE: curved plan reflects the original alignment of Pancras Place, now Pancras Road. The hotel was one of the first to include rooms on the "continental system" with bedrooms en suite with sitting rooms. The company prided itself on the fireproof construction of the hotel, with thick walls dividing every room and with the corridors constructed of brick arches supported by iron girders. (Hunter M and Thorne R (eds.): Change at King's Cross: London: -1990: 77-79).