MORE ABOUT ST PANCRAS

He was initially buried in the cemetery of Calepodius, and the church in Rome dedicated to Saint Pancras - where his body is still kept - stands on the spot where he is said to have been beheaded.

Saint Pancras became a favourite saint in England. The first church consecrated by St. Augustine at Canterbury is said to have been dedicated to St. Pancras.

The Priory of Lewes, in Sussex, was similarly dedicated to his honour; and besides the church around which this particular district grew up, there remain at least eight other churches in England dedicated to this saint.

In the Nineteenth Century, the London parish of St. Pancras contains two churches dedicated to the fourteen year old —the "new" parish church and the ancient or Old St. Pancras, in St. Pancras Road. Of the other churches in England dedicated to Saint Pancras one was in the City of London —St. Pancras, Soper Lane, now incorporated with St. Mary-le-Bow - and the rest comprised Pancransweek, Devon; Widdecome-in-the-Moor, Devon; Exeter; Chichester; Coldred, in Kent; Alton Pancras, Dorset; Arlington, Sussex; and Wroot, in Lincolnshire

The festival of St. Pancras is kept on 12 May, and as a young martyr he is regarded as the patron saint of children. In art, St. Pancras is always represented as a boy with a sword uplifted in one hand and a palm-branch in the other.

The first reference to a church of St Pancras comes in 1183. There is a tradition that this church was the last in or about London in which Mass was said at the time of the Reformation, and that this was the cause of the singular fondness which the old Roman Catholic families had for burying their dead in the adjoining churchyard, where the cross and every variety of Catholic inscriptions could be seen on the tombs.

An anonymous good epigram commemorates this depository of the dead:—

"Through Pancras Churchyard as two tailors were walking,
Of trade, news, and politics earnestly talking,
Says one, 'These fine rains, Thomas,' looking around,
'Will bring things all charmingly out of the ground.'
'Marry, Heaven forbid,' said the other, 'for here
I buried two wives without shedding a tear.'

In the 18th Century however St Pancras was still a picturesque bucolic hamlet on the northern outskirts of London. The St Pancras Wells Inn there offered accommodation and tea gardens among the healing wells and reviving waters.

As late as 1745, there were only two or three houses near the church, and in 1765 the population of the parish was still under six hundred. However, by the 1801 Census the population had risen to more than 35 000, and in 1861 it stood at just under 200 000.

In one section of the above Act it is stated that "the rector and his successors, at his or their expense, shall maintain the disused burial-ground in decent order as an open space for ever, and subject to the same rights and liabilities in all respects as if it were a churchyard; and make the necessary repair of the walls and other fences of the disused burial-ground; and he or they respectively shall be the person or persons from time to time legally chargeable for the costs and expenses of and incident to any such maintenance and repair, any Act or Acts of Parliament to the contrary notwithstanding, provided that the rector and his successors, from time to time, respectively shall not interfere with, or wilfully permit injury to be done to, any vault, grave, tablet, monument, or tombstone, either in the disused burial-ground, or in or under the chapel."

In the following year the same railway company obtained further powers from Parliament (who offered little or no opposition) to take a corner of the St. Pancras Churchyard for part of their main line, ostensibly for the purpose of erecting a pier for the viaduct which crosses the entire yard, and which, from being constructed on arches, would be the means of allowing trains to be constantly flying past the windows of the church, and at the same time to be rumbling over the tombs of the hallowed dead.

The only reason for taking this corner was because it was supposed by the engineer of the railway company "not to have been used for interment, there being no tombstone or any superficial indication of the fact." This, it was maintained, would appear as if the railway company had not made those minute inquiries into the matter which they should have done, when they urged such a reason as an excuse for their acts; as if otherwise they could not have failed to have learned from the parish authorities that the whole extent of both the churchyard and burial-ground were filled with dead bodies, including this very corner, upon which, at that time, the sexton's house stood.

In 1864, not content with the powers they had obtained in 1862 and 1863, the railway company asked for fresh powers— to take the old church and the whole of the graveyard as being part of the land required, in order to create a junction between the Midland main line and the Metropolitan Railway at the King's Cross Station; but this modest request was refused, and no further power was conceded to the company other than to cross the entire breadth of the St. Pancras burial-ground by a tunnel. The roof of this tunnel was not to come within twelve feet of the present surface of the burial-ground, although it is stated that "the ground is so crowded with dead that hundreds of bodies are buried to a depth of twenty-four feet in the older part of the ground."

In 1848, when the church was being altered, it was found necessary to take in a piece of the churchyard to admit of the enlargement of the building; and while making the excavations which were necessary, it was discovered that at depths varying from eight to twelve feet the clay was laden with fætid decomposition and filthy water from the surrounding ground, and that masses of coffins were packed one upon the other in rows, with scarcely any intervening ground.

In 1866 the railway company commenced their operations against the St. Giles's burial-ground; but immediately upon the discovery, through the works of the contractor, that bodies were buried there, application was made to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, as also to the solicitors and engineer of the company; and an undertaking was obtained that the works should be stopped, and the exposed places decently covered, until an order could be obtained for the proper removal of the remains.

Upon this discovery becoming known, a loud outburst of indignation was raised by the parishioners, especially those living in the immediate neighbourhood. They considered that a "horrible desecration of the dead" had taken place, and such as ought not to be tolerated, or even justified, by any Act of Parliament. They accordingly decided that the matter should be made as public as possible, and that it should be brought prominently to the notice of the authorities in view to putting a stop to the proceedings of the Midland Railway.

In the House of Commons the attention of the Government was twice called by a member to the proceedings of the railway company; and the consequent inquiry into the facts of the case would, it was fondly hoped, protect this sacred spot from profanation.

The Midland Railway in their turn appeared to have given up the making of the tunnel; and their engineer proposed to the church trustees that they should be allowed to carry their works through the burial ground by an open cutting to the surface, instead of by a tunnel, as provided under their Act of Parliament. The trustees, however, resolved that they could not consent to any departure from the strict terms of that Act; and that if this reliance proved insufficient, the vestry confided in the Burial Act and the common law to protect the churchyard from profanation.

The new Cemetery of St. Pancras, eighty-seven acres in extent, was opened in 1854 and situated on the Horse Shoe Farm, at Finchley, about four miles from London, and two miles from the northern boundary of the parish of St Pancras. It was the first extra-mural parish burial-ground created in the Metropolis.

However, the desecration of the St. Pancras churchyard was as nothing compared to the demolition of the hundreds of houses of the poorer working classes in Agar Town and Somers Town, occasioned by the extension of the Midland Railway.

The extent of this clean sweep is still comparatively unknown and caused a very considerable portion of St. Pancras parish to be erased from the map of London. Perhaps no part of London or its neighbourhood has undergone such rapid and extensive transformation.

In 1868, the year that St Pancras station opened, the longest rail journey available was 97 miles to Leicester.

To signal the fraternity between the European partners, the train drivers performing the world's first train ballet will be French and English. But, as with so many other European business collaborations, such mutual respect has not always been so apparent. Admittedly, Britain hardly assuaged French sensibilities by picking Waterloo - named after the field of britain's decisive victory over Napoleon - as the first UK terminus for Eurostar trains.

"Vacating Waterloo for St Pancras is a real bonus" says Holden, "The media made it more of an issue, but I guess some people felt a little uncomfortable."

Fortunately St Pancras has no such anti-French connotations.

"Someone's looked into that. There were two St Pancrases I'm told. It's much more friendly"

It's not just history that divides the partners but engineering. Holden says that the Eurostar trains are some of the most complex in the World because they have to be able to operate with different signalling and electrical supply systems on either side of the Channel. He says European Commission rules on harmonising rail infrastructure have made things easier.

"It's not so much of a nightmare now as it used to be," he says, not altogether convincingly.

All drivers are multi-lingual, Holden adds, and have to speak the appropriate language as they emerge from either end of the tunnel. The old British Rail culture also clashed with that of French state-owned counterpart SNCF.

"British Rail had their way of doing things, so did SNCF and neither recognised the other," Holden says, "But in the past four or five years the culture has changed. There is much more of a willingness to look at both countries and say, that is a better way of doing it, let's do that."

Eurostar trains have been running between London, Paris and Brussels since 1994. But on this side of the Channel trains have mostly had to trundle along at a modest pace, while on the French side they have been able to hit 186mph since Eurostar's inception. The first part of the high speed rail link in the UK, from Folkestone to Ebbsfleet in Kent opened in 2003, shaving 20 minutes from journey times between Paris and London. This month's opening of the second part of the link - from Ebbsfleet to St Pancras via Stratford in east London - will knock a further 20 minutes off journey times between the capitals, reducing them to two hours and 15 minutes. Holden, who has worked for LCR since 1996 [ and was previously at Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd from 1983 ] and is also a director of Eurostar Group, denies he has ever felt embarrassed about having to wait a decade to get up to speed with the French and Belgians.

"I'm proud. We use that word a lot at the moment. I get the sense we've joined the high speed club."

The great - albeit belated - achievement has cost £ 5 800 000 000 which includes the overhaul of St Pancras station. the members of the Eurostar consortium originally claimed that the train service would recoup the outlay. But in reality, the government - and taxpayers - will foot the bill for now. Eurostar claimed that more than 15 000 000 passengers would use the service each year but numbers are currently half that. Directors have since admitted they exaggerated the figures because they knew there was no political appetite for governments to pay for the project themselves. without this claim, the project "would never have happened" admits Holden.

When this funding black hole became apparent in the late Nineties, Railtrack agreed to buy the first stage of the link. When the precursor to Network Rail collapsed a few years later, the government promised to pay the entire debt in the likely event LCR could not, effectively nationalising the company. This led to the National Audit Office questioning if this was taxpayer's money well spent. However, Holden points to the benefits of regeneration, worth up to £ 1100 000 000, he claims, which he says will make good the investment.

"In an ideal world, the return on £ 5.8 billion would come from [rail] users and access charges. But it's not an ideal world. we have to recognise the priorities for investment have changed."

As well as owning the high speed rail link, LCR also owns huge swathes of land around Stratford and other points along the route which are being redeveloped. If, as seems likely, the land is sold when the company is broken up next year, the government should get its cash back eventually, once the rest of the regeneration is factored in.

Daniel Roth, director of Ernst & Young, says the lesson for future private sector funding of such risky large rail projects is that the government must ultimately guarantee them,

"The financial community perceives a significant risk in these projects. They are very large and there is a risk of them going wrong. However, LCR demonstrates these delivery risks can be successfully managed."

Last week 4 000 people converged on St Pancras to "stress test" the refurbished station. Among them were actors who pretended to be lost or aggressive to see how staff coped. Along with the dancing trains, it seems a surreal culmination to the project. But, as Holden knows only too well, rail rarely runs smoothly in this country; better to be safe than sorry."

Despite passenger numbers having failed to reach predicted levels in the years after 1994, 2007 saw a much greater utilisation of Eurostar services due problems at UK airports and the allure of the Rugby World Cup being played in France. With the completion of High Speed One, it will also be possible to leave St Pancras and travel 650 miles to Geneva in six hours 40 minutes while the best time for Kings Cross to Inverness - a mere 550 miles distant - remains over eight hours.

It is also possible at some point in the future that Deutsche Bahn may wish to run its high speed ICE trains ( pictured below ) direct from St Pancras to Germany. As it is, train operating company Go-Ahead will pay to use High Speed One for its Hitachi built Class 395 Javelin emus linking St Pancras with Kent via Stratford - just seven minutes down High Speed One and focus of both the 2012 Olympic Games and large amounts of land owned by LCR. One of the Javelin trains ( pictured above ) was present on Tuesday 6 November for the official opening of St Pancras by Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip.

The very first train, a VIP special, pulled out of the Barlow train shed on the dot of 11.01 accompanied by a small orchestra playing Elgar and a large crowd of onlookers taking photographs. Only in a British station could the announcer then come on the public address system with a warning that flash photography was not permitted on the platforms [ Now they tell me! ] Some people have no sense of occasion.

Business was brisk at the champagne bar, the only food and drink outlet yet functioning, and the £ 7.50 charged for a glass of the cheapest bubbly seemed no deterrent to drinking before the sun was over the yard arm. John Harper, 76, from St Germans, Cornwall, was admiring the renovated station almost as much as his £ 59.00 return ticket.

"I last left this station in 1954 on my way to Tilbury and a ship to Australia. it was a grubby old hole then. I think it's rather splendid now."

At exactly 12.28 the first fare-paying passengers pulled out past waiting trains bound for Luton, Leicester and other more mundane destinations. However fast it may be, shaving 20 minutes off the journey to Paris, the new rail link between St Pancras and north Kent could never be described as a scenic route. Within minutes it plunges into six miles of tunnel under the back gardens of east London to emerge at Stratford station, which will serve the 2012 Olympics. But there is no view of the site; the line remains stubbornly in a deep cutting before burrowing into the next tunnel. When daylight is restored, you find yourself among the badlands of Dagenham Dock, compared with which the old route from Waterloo was a constant delight of familiar landmarks.

Emerging from the Thames Tunnel at Dartford, the train made a brief unscheduled stop so that Eurostar could show off the deserted platforms of its Ebbsfleet station. "Verray andy", the French train conductor informed us, " for le Bluewater shopping."

Over on the other side, we stopped at Lille to enjoy another scene of concrete desolation. This was no help to a train that has to travel at 186 mph to arrive on time. We didn't, pulling up to its French buffers five minutes late. But at least it was moving: much of France's railway system was not.

Russell Blackmore, from Maida Vale, north London, a regular traveller on Eurostar, was impressed by St Pancras. Over lunch of salmon fish pie and a small bottle of Bordeaux he said:

"It's a massive improvement - a better station and much quicker."

There were no celebrations on arrival at Gare du Nord, just some passengers having their picture taken with the driver holding a small Union Jack, and an elderly lady struggling off the train with two enormous balloons in celebration of her 70th birthday."

The Times also noted that the inaugural timetable featured 17 trains a day to Paris, 10 to Brussels and one to Disneyland Paris. The Thunderer also reported:

"Guillaume Pepy, head of SNCF, has described the majestically rejuvenated St Pancras, a cathedral of High Victorian enterprise and engineering, as possibly the best station in the World. This from the boss of possibly the best railway network in the World, is praise indeed, especially as it's not one of his."

On the same day The Daily Telegraph also noted:

"For the passengers on the first high-speed rail service from London's St Pancras station to the Gare du Nord in Paris yesterday, the faster journey was most welcome. But for the French drivers Dominique Carbonnel and Robert Andres it was a touch disappointing. They admitted to a twinge of sadness that the days of, as as former president Francois Mitterand once put it, meandering through the English countryside for an hour, had come to an end.

"When you were going more slowly, there was more variety," said Mr Andres "At 300 kilometres an hour all the way, it is a little monotonous."

The upheaval will start within minutes of the last Eurostar service arriving at Waterloo, shortly before 8.00 pm on 13 November, after which the team will have 15 hours to move base before the first train leaves St Pancras the following day. More than 800 Eurostar employees will move across the city to the new base, as will 500 contractors, customs officials and the French police officers who carry out border checks before passengers embark. Only administrative workers will remain south of the river for the first few months. White vans will transport the last remaining pieces of equipment from Waterloo to St Pancras, including the personal belongings of Eurostar staff, although everything from ticket machines to security gates are already in place.

At the same time, the company will move its spare trains across London from a depot near Wormwood Scrubs in the west to Temple Mills, near Stratford in the east. As Eurostar shuttles its trains around the network, several will be sent to the continent and back.

There will also be banners and "razzmatazz" as Eurostar bids fond farewell to Waterloo, its home for the past 13 years. Richard George, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link's project director, said:

"The whole thing is like moving house. The crucial thing is to make sure you get what you - and not the builders - want. Nearly three quarters of our staff will be moving overnight."

Because of thr scale of the move, Eurostar will stage some dress rehearsals - known as "volume testing" - to make sure St Pancras works smoothly when the first 7 600 passengers arrive at the station on day one. They will go through the security arches and board the trains but will travel only as far as the new station at Ebbsfleet, Kent, 15 minutes away on the high speed line.

"It allows us to test our procedures and make sure everything works " Mr George explained " It's also about our staff, many of whom have spent 13 years at Waterloo. They need to know how St Pancras works and what to do should things go wrong."

The gleaming new St Pancras terminal will encompass what is believed to be the world's longest champagne bar. But many of the other shops will not be ready, since Mr George and his team have given the train-running part of the operation higher priority than retail."

Sir Timothy West - thespian, real ale gourmet, President of the Hereford and Gloucester Canal Trust and steam buff - played William Henry Barlow the architect in a short tableau telling the history of the station that had virtually risen from the dead and that now puts the Gare du Nord at the other end of the line to shame.

The newly refurbished St Pancras has, on its upper level in view of the Eurostar trains, a 330' (90 metre) long champagne bar which is believed to be the longest in Europe. However, the bar surface itself is not continuous but broken up by small seating areas. Other new features include wireless internet access, touch screen monitors and - at the front of the station - a daily farmer's market.

"People across the whole of Britain and not just the south east are suddenly quite a bit closer to Europe."

Her Majesty The Queen was later presented with a replica of the station clock.

Virgin Trains managing director Chris Gibb said "We are very much looking forward to playing our vital role in rail linking the Birmingham area to mainland Europe."

Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said "These through fares make Eurostar truly accessible to people living to the north of London. Rail will provide cost-effective, convenient and comfortable travel to the Continent. And all Eurostar journeys will be carbon neutral from 14 November 2007 at no extra cost to travellers."

Virgin Trains tickets, which include one-stop Underground travel, and Eurostar tickets may be booked from 14 November through Eurostar's contact centre on 08705 186186. With up to 13 connecting rail services a day to Paris and seven a day to Brussels, travellers will enjoy frequencies to compete with regional airlines as well as the comfort and convenience of at-seat office facilities and catering and connecting rail travel.

The possibility of a new line was raised in the DfT's "Towards a Sustainable Transport System" document, published in response to last year's Eddington transport study and to the Stern review of the economics of climate change. The report identified the London-Birmingham-Manchester route as a "problem corridor" and a potential route for the UK's first domestic inter-city high speed rail route.

The future for high speed in the UK had looked bleak after Sir Rod Eddington's report appeared to rule out high speed rail as "unproven technology" in his study last year. But he later clarified his his statement, saying that it referred only to the development of Maglev [ Magnetic levitation ] rail and not to conventional high speed lines. The development of intercity high speed rail was just one of a "broad range of options" to tackle congestion and mitigate the environmental impact of transport, according to the DfT.

"This might include widening of motorways, active traffic management, road pricing or the construction of new rail capacity, either through a conventional ( c. 125 mph ) line or a high speed ( c. 200 mph ) line" says the report.

"Our aim is to support people's desire for mobility while ensuring that transport contributes to the overall reduction in carbon emissions," said Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly.

The report says the "right mix of solutions requires an understanding of the origins, destinations and purpose of goods and people movements through the corridor."

Liberal Democrat Transport Secretary Susan Kramer commented:

"We need a commitment from the Government to invest in a complete high speed, not just a single line from London to Birmingham."

Scottish government ministers fear Scotland risks being left behind following the opening of the new St Pancras International station, which will cut the journey time between London and Paris to 2 hours 15 minutes. The new high speed Eurostar link now means that travellers in the English capital can reach Hamburg quicker than they can reach Oban. The Nationalists fear that without better links from Scotland the new Eurostar service will harm the Scottish government's chances of meeting its target of a 50% rise in tourism by 2015.

Salmond is now seeking a meeting with UK ministers in the hope that they can reach agreement on joint funding. They are already considering a high speed rail link from London to Birmingham at an estimated cost of £ 7 000 000 000, cutting journey times to under an hour. But they have yet to be convinced of the link to Scotland. Salmond is expected to offer to pay up to 10% of the costs of the project, covering the cost of new track that would require to be built in Scotland. The Scottish national Party ( SNP ) favours a link that would connect Scotland to Birmingham, London and Manchester. This sis likely to be cheaper than a network that would include Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle because it would require fewer miles of track.

The link is one of 10 transport proposals included in the Sunday Times "Get Scotland Moving" campaign launched last month. The Scottish government has already given the go ahead for two of the proposed scheme, the upgrading of the M8 to motorway standard and dualling the A9 from Perth to Inverness.

Mark James, a spokesman for the Railway Forum, a think tank and lobby group on the railway industry said:

"High speed rail links in Europe have shown that the economic benefits can be huge when journey times from city to city are reduced to three hours. it would reduce the imbalance that exists between Scotland and the southeast of England, spreading economic benefits across the country."

A UK government source said that British ministers " would love to see a high speed link" but that economic and environmental cases were not clear cut.

"Ruth Kelly ( the UK Transport Secretary ) has started talking about a first stage between London and Birmingham, but it is so expensive. This stuff costs £ 100 000 000 per kilometre."

Arup has a history of originating big transport projects. In the 1980s it came up with the scheme to route the high speed line to the Channel Tunnel via Stratford in East London, ending a planning impasse that had threatened its construction. The Heathrow scheme is in its early stages and has no official backing from government. Its first public airing is likely to be tomorrow at a parliamentary reception to launch "The Right Line", a book on the history of the high speed link.

Mark Bostock, a director at Arup and one of the key individuals in the battle over the routing of the Channel Tunnel line, said:

"There is total logic in seeing how Heathrow can be connected to the national and international rail network. This is fundamental to the sustainable development of the airport and would be a step change beyond British Airports Authority's extremely modest ambitions for shifting passengers from road to rail."

Arup's plan would see the Channel Tunnel line extended west, parallel with the Great Western line. After Heathrow, trains would turn north along the alignment of the Chiltern line, running to Birmingham and Scotland.

"What this plan brings is connectivity - not only bringing the north and the Midlands onto the international high-speed rail network, but also bringing Heathrow within two and a half hours of central Paris." Bostock added.

The plan would also free capacity at Heathrow by cutting the need for short haul flights to Europe. This could detract from the justification for a controversial third runway at the airport.

In contrast to the over-the-top extravagance of Sir George Gilbert Scott's design, Monday's opening will be an understated affair - a "soft opening" in hotel parlance - with only 50 of its 245 rooms available and one of its two restaurants dishing up food.

As a Renaissance hotel, an upmarket member of America's utilitarian Marriott International hotel group, the interior has not been quite as opulently appointed as recently reopened rivals such as the Savoy and the Four Seasons on Park Lane, or the Corinthia Hotel, which is soon to open on Whitehall.  But the interior, most notably the grand staircase, is nevertheless striking, making full use of the high ceilings and huge windows and its location overlooking the spectacular St Pancras International Eurostar terminal.

The Grade I listing - imposed in the 1960s to save the building from demolition - meant that there was plenty of scope for extravagantly over-budget expenditure, as Harry Handelsman, the property entrepreneur behind the project, knows all too well.  The £150 million cost of restoring the hotel compares with an original budget of about £60 million.  The total cost, including the development of 67 luxury apartments, is about £200 million.

He cites the example of the Gilbert Scott Suite, where fragments of the original rare wall paper were found behind a mirror. "We told English Heritage and before we knew it had cost us another £47 000.  But how much better is it to see the room with the original wallpaper rather than simply painted?"

Mr Handelsman, who owns the Manhattan Loft Corporation, became involved in the project in 1997, alongside Whitbread.  But when the leisure operator - then a Marriott franchisee - withdrew from the project, the German born entrepreneur opted to acquire the 250 year lease himself with Lord Fink, the hedge fund manager, as his financial partner.

Guests checking in after Monday's opening will be able to eat and drink in the Booking Office Bar and Restaurants, located in the original station booking office.  But it will not be until the grand opening on 5 May - 138 years to the day since the Midland Grand first opened for business - that they will have access to the full range of facilities, including the Spa and the Gilbert Scott Restaurant, run under the auspices of Marcus Wareing, the two-Michelin-starred chef.

Despite cost overruns, Mr Handelsman believes that the St Pancras Renaissance will still make him money, although he insists that it has long since become more than just abot money.  "For decades the building has been hidden behind this glorious facade.  It needs to be seen in all its glory.  It has turned into a massive financial commitment, but I feel an emotional attachment."  Who says the romance of the railway was dead?"