Architecture
The church is in a Greek revival style, using the Ionic order. It is built from brick, faced with Portland stone, except for the portico and the tower above the roof, which are entirely of stone. All the external decoration, including the capitals of the columns is of terracotta.
The Inwoods drew on two ancient Greek monuments, the Erechtheum and the Tower of the Winds, both in Athens, for their inspiration. The doorways are closely modelled on those of the Erechtheum, as is the entablature, and much of the other ornamentation. Henry William Inwood was in Athens at the time that the plans for St Pancras were accepted, and brought plaster casts of details of the Erechtheum, and some excavated fragments, back to England.
The west end follows the basic arrangement of portico, vestibules and tower established by James Gibbs at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The octagonal domed ceiling of the vestibule is in imitation of the Tower of the Winds, and the tower above uses details from the same structure. At the east end is an apse, flanked by the church's most original features: two tribunes designed in imitation of the Erechtheum, with entablatures supported by caryatids. Unlike those on the Erechtheum, each caryatid holds a symbolic extinguished torch or an empty jug, appropriate for their positions above the entrances to the burial vault, There is a stone sarcophagus behind the figures in each tribune, and the cornices are studded with lion's heads. The caryatids are made of terracotta, constructed in sections around cast-iron columns, and were modelled by John Charles Felix Rossi, who provided all the terracotta on the building. The upper levels of the tribunes were designed as vestries.
Access to the church is through three doorways ranged under the portico. There are no side doors. Inside, the church has a flat ceiling with an uninterrupted span of 60 feet (18 m), and galleries supported on cast-iron columns. The interior of the apse is in the form of one half of a circular temple, with six columns, painted to imitate marble, raised on a plinth.
The crypt, which extends the whole length of the church, was designed to contain 2,000 coffins, but less than five hundred interments had taken place by 1854, when the practice was ended in all London churches. It served as an air-raid shelter in both world wars, and is now used as an art gallery.
The church was closed for two years from 1951 for structural renovation made necessary by dry rot and war damage. The North Chapel was added in 1970 and the interior was restored in 1981. The steps of the church were one of several sites used for floral tributes after the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
Read more about this topic: St Pancras New Church
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