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KING'S CROSS STATION, LONDON

King's Cross at its opening in 1852, when Queen Victoria arrived to inspect the station.

This rail station is home to the magical "Platform 9 3/4," where the young wizards and witches board the Hogwarts Express.

The station is real and found on Euston Road, in the King's Cross district of north central London. It is one of 10 main-line stations in the English capital and headquarters of the Great North Eastern Railway, whose line snakes up the United Kingdom’s east coast, through North London and Hertfordshire, to northern Scotland. This rail line had a famed engine, the Flying Scotsman. King's Cross also is a boarding station for the "Underground," or London subway system.

King's Cross in the first decade of the 20th century.

King’s Cross is next to the St. Pancras Station. It was designed by architect Lewis Cubitt and constructed in 1851-52 on the former site of a smallpox and fever hospital. The yellow-brick structure is notable for its large, arched windows, Italian architectural style and a 120-foot-high central clock tower.

St. Pancras was erected in 1863-65 and today dwarfs King's Cross with its high roof. This station will become important for being a terminus (end point) in 2007 for the Channel Tunnel ("Chunnel") that connects the United Kingdom with France. The St. Pancras church has been the site of Christian houses of worship since 315 A.D., and before that was the location of a pagan temple that served Roman soldiers.

The King's Cross area previously was known as Battlebridge and at one time was open country meadows broken up by a number of windmills that processed the grains grown on the banks of the Fleet River. By the mid-1700s, the area began to build up, and it became a fashionable spa district. The name "King’s Cross" came from a monument to King George IV (1820-30), which was built at the junction of Euston, St. Pancras and Pentonville roads.

George IV: The king in "King's Cross."

George IV was born in 1762, the son of King George III, best known to Americans as the strongly disliked king during the American Revolution. When he was growing up, George IV had the potential to be a good monarch. He was intelligent, well-educated and witty. But he also was lazy, rebellious and would not marry as his father desired.

He had a series of girlfriends until he secretly married a Catholic widow, Maria Anne Fitzherbert. That was a no-no in the UK, as there was and is an official state religion, the Church of England. George's father had the marriage dissolved and had him wed to his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. Though they had one daughter, they hated each other and hardly spoke. George's reign was cut short by his death from a series of strokes brought on by severe stomach bleeding.

People hated the King's Cross monument, which was first erected in 1830. It was taken down in 1845, but the London district has kept the King's Cross name to this day.

The three train stations in the area – King's Cross, Euston and St. Pancras – also led to more expansion in the district in the 1800s, this time in industry. Examples were the Imperial Gasworks and its coal operation; the Granary grain storage facility; and Caledonian livestock markets.

King's Cross Station today: The clock tower and high, arched windows are intact, but the front entrance has been changed.

The area today is fairly run down, with tourist guides warning visitors to stay away at night. However, there is a grass-roots movement in the area for urban renewal and historic preservation. The King’s Cross Preservation writes:

"The building and subsequent development of the railways brought enormous wealth to shareholders in these enterprises. However, the lives of ordinary working people were continually devastated by having to uproot in the face of encroachment by the railways.

"After a long period of comparative calm between [World Wars I and II] and immediately post-war, towards the end of the '60s, property developers started buying up land to exploit a rumored new line from King's Cross to Maplin, the proposed site for London's third airport on Foulness Island. This never happened, and so began the blight that has characterized the whole area since then."

King's Cross services both long-distance and local rail leaving London. At left, a Great North Eastern train awaits passengers before making its journey northward. Right, a train of the London Underground, makes its King's Cross stop.

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