Above the platforms: a night at the old Midland Grand

A palace that was nearly lost

The Midland Grand opened in 1873 as the hotel of the Midland Railway's London terminus, designed by George Gilbert Scott to make every other station on the Euston Road look modest by comparison. It was spectacular and awkward to run, and it closed as a hotel in 1935. For decades afterwards the building served as railway offices, and by the 1960s it faced a very real threat of demolition.

A campaign in which John Betjeman played a leading part helped save it, which is why his bronze now stands on the upper concourse behind the hotel, holding on to his hat and gazing up at the roof. The station was restored for the international trains, and the hotel reopened in 2011 as the St Pancras Renaissance. Few London hotels can claim that the building itself is the reason to go; this one can, and an evening here should make the most of it.

The staircase, the booking hall and the cab rank

Three rooms tell you what the building is. The grand staircase climbs through the old house beneath a painted ceiling, all stone, iron and gilt, and has turned up in more films and music videos than anybody bothers to count, the most famous a pop video from the middle of the 1990s shot on its steps. Walk it once, even if your room is on the first floor.

The Booking Office, the station's former ticket hall, is now the bar and restaurant, with a lofty timber roof and a very long counter where travellers once queued for tickets north. The old cab rank, where hansoms once drew in under cover, has been glazed over and turned into a lounge. Between them they make the ground floor one long run of places to meet, all within a minute of the lifts.

For a first drink the Booking Office has the atmosphere and the lounge has the quiet. Nora, listed with the toned and athletic companions and entirely at home under Victorian ironwork, favours the former; guests who have just stepped off a long journey usually prefer the latter.

Old house or new wing

Rooms here fall into two families. The Chambers rooms sit inside the original Gothic building, with the high ceilings, tall windows and heavy doors of a Victorian grand hotel; some face the Euston Road and some look towards the train shed. The Barlow wing is newer, built alongside the platforms, calmer in style and closer to a contemporary hotel room. Both are comfortable. Only one of them feels like the building.

For an evening that is meant to be remembered, ask for the Chambers side and a window with a view of the brickwork. Nobody should expect to sleep inside the clock tower itself, whatever the romance of the idea; what you can ask for is a room in the old house with the tower lit overhead, which is the next best thing and a good deal warmer.

Meeting at the station, not the room

Because the hotel is part of the terminus, a companion can meet you anywhere between the platform and the lift, and plenty of guests like to begin in public. The obvious landmark is the Meeting Place, the tall bronze of an embracing couple beneath the station clock at the end of the upper concourse. Nobody standing below it looks as though they are waiting for anything but a train.

That makes St Pancras the natural hotel for anybody arriving on the Eurostar. The train pulls in, the hotel is a couple of minutes from the barriers, and the evening can begin with a glass on the concourse instead of a taxi queue. The Eurostar and airport format covers meeting a train in full, and the St Pancras page lists the stations and the walking times.

If the train runs late, and trains sometimes do, nothing is lost. Send the desk a message from your seat with the new arrival time, the start of the booking moves to match it, and she waits somewhere warm rather than on a cold platform. The evening simply slides back to fit the timetable.

Behind the station after dark

The station fronts the Euston Road, but the evening lives behind it. A few minutes north, past the Kings Cross concourse, Granary Square sends its fountains down to the canal steps, and Coal Drops Yard draws two old coal viaducts into one long curved roof, with bars and dining rooms that keep going late. Milena, who has no patience for a vague plan, begins her evenings in the vaulted hall of the German Gymnasium; Roxi prefers the noise of the Yard and the towpath afterwards.

To the west, the British Library stands beside the station behind its red brick piazza, closed by evening but a fine thing to walk past. The canal is the quiet option: the towpath runs east from Granary Square under a string of bridges, sparingly lit, and ten slow minutes beside the water are the best cure there is for a long day in a railway carriage. The whole quarter, from the canal down to the Euston Road, is laid out on the Kings Cross page.

A night worth the building

This is a hotel for staying rather than visiting. Two hours at £500 suits a guest who has arrived late and would like company before sleep, and three hours at £700 leaves time for a drink downstairs first. But the building rewards the ten hour night at £1,800 more than most, because the best part of St Pancras is waking up inside it, with morning light on the brick and the first trains sliding in beneath the roof.

For guests catching an early train the next day, staying the night also solves the only real problem of the evening: there is no taxi to catch and no alarm set for five. The overnight format explains how the night and the morning are handled, and every figure appears on the rates page.