St Pancras - New Church
The ancient parish of St Pancras once stretched almost from Oxford Street to Highgate. By the early 1800s the original parish church had become neglected. The local population had declined, while the population in southern part of the parish had grown rapidly. A new church was needed to serve the newly built up areas surrounding Euston Square.
The first stone was laid by the Duke of York at a ceremony on 1 July 1819. It was carved with a Greek inscription, of which the English translation is, “May the light of the blessed Gospel thus ever illuminate the dark temples of the Heathen.”
The church was consecrated by the Bishop of London on 7 May 1822, and the sermon was preached by the vicar of St Pancras, James Moore.
The church has a Grade I listing from English Heritage, as an important early example of the Greek Revival architecture. It is mostly built from brick, faced with Portland stone. The portico and the tower are entirely of stone. All the external decoration, including the capitals of the columns, is of terracotta.
The pillars at the west end of the church are Ionic in style. The octagonal tower, modelled on the Tower of the Winds, also influences the shape of the domed central vestibule. The church’s most celebrated features are the two sets of caryatids that stand above the north and south entrances to the Crypt. Unlike the original figures on the Acropolis, each of the St Pancras caryatids holds an extinguished torch or an empty jug, reflecting their position as guardians of the dead.
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.
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