Euston Arch
- see main article Euston Arch
Hardwick's best-known work is likely the 1837 'Propylaeum' or Doric Euston Arch at the old Euston station, designed for the London and Birmingham Railway at the cost of £35,000. Like Inigo Jones some 200 years earlier, Hardwick had been inspired by Italian architecture, following a trip to Italy in 1818-19.
Despite the efforts of John Betjeman and other conservationists, the Euston Arch was demolished in the early 1960s. The gates of the arch are stored at the National Railway Museum in York. In 1994 the historian Dan Cruickshank discovered 4,000 tons, or about 60%, of the arch's stones buried in the bed of the River Lea in the East End of London, including the architrave stones with the gilded EUSTON lettering. This discovery has opened the possibility of a reconstruction of the arch.
Read more about this topic: Philip Hardwick
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