The London Traveler

If you like the Gothic – that is, the macabre, rather than the medieval style – there’s no better place to visit in London than Old Saint Pancras cemetery.
Huge trees shade the place; in winter, their trunks are stark, and you can  hear their twigs rattling above you. Sometimes one hurtles down, blown off by a gust of wind. Behind loom tall brick tenements, bare and gloomy like Scottish castles. And everywhere, of course, are gravestones. Just take a stormy sky and the threat of rain, and you could fancy yourself on the set of a horror film.
Both the railway …read more

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London station pubs are generally rather disappointing. Their prices are often high, the beer offering lacklustre (fizzy keg for the most part), and the premises depressing.
The Betjeman Arms might mark an interesting new departure.  It has real ale – Adnams, Meantime, and Sharp’s (‘Betjeman Bitter’) as well as Belgian beer. That’s a very interesting list for a London pub, with three ales usually on handpump.
At £3 a pint, prices are not extortionate for London. And while I’m not a lover of the faux-traditional style, at least it’s not a fluorescent strip-lit waste of seventies decor, like so many other station …read more

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 St Pancras Station has been rescued. It’s a glorious architectural work – a huge glass and cast iron roof, with a stunning Victorian Gothic entrance and an amazing undercroft (now only accessible to Eurostar passengers).
When William Henry Barlow set up the train shed, it was the largest single span structure ever built. The lovely pale eggshell blue of the painted ironwork  and the fine curves of the roof are still one of London’s great sights.
In front of the station, the Midland Grand Hotel by Giles Gilbert Scott looks like a mixture of Addams family haunted house and fairy tale castle.  …read more

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I rather like this statue of Sir John Betjeman in St Pancras station. (It’s on the upper level, on the way to the champagne bar.) How much nicer it is than the much bigger ‘kiss’ statue which takes pride of place in the restored Victorian station.
Martin Jennings created the image of the poet looking up at the wonderful Victorian roof of the station, as if he was seeing it for the first time. Betjeman is slightly rumpled, his coat blowing around him, his hat probably about to fly off, but the sense of wonder on his face gives the …read more

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Antony Gormley used the opening of his new show (blogged below) to lambast public sculpture in London.
His Angel of the North started a trend for public authorities to commission sculpture. But he’s disappointed in the standard of what is being set up.
One work that deserves this ire is “Meet me at St Pancras” by Paul Day. Gormley singles it out, and I dislike it too. Its photo-finish makes the folds of fabric seem almost slimy, everything is rounded like a Beryl Cook painting, but without the humour. And it tugs at the heart-strings in a nauseous way like a three-year-old …read more

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I quite often end up using Eurostar and it usually leaves me a bit frazzled, often with an hour or so between trains.
But I’ve discovered a secret. Just follow the street that goes along the right hand side of the station (looking down the tracks), and you’ll find Camley Street Natural Park- a lovely little hideout just ten minutes’ walk from the station.
You’d think there’s not much you can do with two acres on an ex-industrial site. But by creating little mounds and hills, ponds and thickets, the London Wildlife Trust has made a semi-wilderness where you can wander, …read more

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