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St Pancras Renaissance Hotel by Kombizz Via Flickr: The St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel is a hotel in the English city of London, adjacent to St Pancras railway station. It opened in 2011, but occupies much of the former Midland Grand Hotel which opened in 1873 and closed in 1935. The upper levels of the original building have been redeveloped as apartments by the Manhattan Loft Corporation, and retain the St Pancras Chambers name. In 1865, the Midland Railway Company held a competition for the design of a 150-bed hotel to be constructed next to its railway station, St Pancras, which was still under construction at the time. Eleven designs were submitted, including one by George Gilbert Scott, which, at 300 rooms, was much bigger and more expensive than the original specifications. Despite this, the company liked his plans and construction began. The east wing opened in 1873, and the rest followed in Spring 1876. The hotel was expensive, with costly fixtures including a grand staircase, rooms with gold leaf walls and a fireplace in every room. It had many innovative features such as hydraulic lifts, concrete floors, revolving doors and fireproof floor constructions, though, none of the rooms had bathrooms. The hotel was taken over by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1922 before closing in 1935, by which time its utilities were outdated and too costly to maintain, such as the armies of servants needed to carry chamber pots, tubs, bowls and spittoons. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Pancras_Renaissance_London_Hotel