please empty your brain below
Ah - that taxi tank switch at Euston. Originally planned for May last year and then swiftly “postponed” once Sunak’s HS2 cancellation/postponement became clear.

It is quite a big deal as it would have enabled the construction of the new and now cancelled joint Euston Square / Euston tube station entrance. As it is, we still hope it leads to the pedestrianisation of Gordon Street at some point in the next decade.

I wonder when it will finally happen. The new taxi rank has looked complete for months.

Dan | 11.03.24 - 7:19 a.m. | #

The pink Mclaren has been there for years and is a bit of a mystery.

OwlRed | 11.03.24 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Thanks OwlRed - I was also thinking that about the Mclaren so good to read a bit more about it.

Jayne | 11.03.24 - 7:37 a.m. | #

A lot of London's history is explained by its geology: the Euston Road was built on the gravelly-side of the border between the Taplow Gravel Terraces and London Clay.
See 'The Geology of Primrose Hill and Marylebone' here.

martin'O'Holcombe | 11.03.24 - 8:10 a.m. | #

The Standard hotel in the Camden Council offices is worth a mention. Great example of Brutalist architecture but also a sympathetic conversion to a new use. Great article a href="https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/raising-the-standard-orms-retrofits-camden-council-offices-into-hotel" rel="nofollow">here.

David | 11.03.24 - 8:37 a.m. | #

Several years ago I used to go to the cafe in the basement of the Friends (Quakers) Meeting House opposite Euston Station. Back then it was not vegetarian and was self service buffet style, you paid a fixed price for one plate and you could load the plate up with as much as you liked. After a while this stopped as people were taken rather large servings, and they made you pay for individual items, I ceased going after that!
The cafe in basement has nice decor and from what I remember was air conditioned, so still worth a visit

John | 11.03.24 - 8:46 a.m. | #

If we are to have a Knowledge Quarter, there should somewhere be an Ignorance Quarter. I’m sure that Hogarth or Bunyan would’ve had ideas for this.

Philip | 11.03.24 - 8:54 a.m. | #

My chest tightens instictively as I recall the affect that section road has on my lungs - especially during warmer weather - when visiting Wellcome, British Library or The Shaw Theatre. If walking further afield, I leave Euston Rd at the earliest opportunity!

Frank F | 11.03.24 - 8:55 a.m. | #

The friends cafe is a good place for a quick cheap coffee in the area.

MilesT | 11.03.24 - 9:09 a.m. | #

While unrealistic given the value of the site, it's a shame the space to be occupied by the new life sciences building opposite King's Cross is not being converted into an extension of Argyle Square Gardens behind.

tops | 11.03.24 - 9:42 a.m. | #

You missed the four caryatids of the St Pancras New Church, London, almost identical with the Ancient Greek one of the Erechtheum in Athens, directly opposite the Fire Station. There are four more on the other side of the church. An original Greek one is now in the British Museum - part of the stolen treasures,

strawbricj | 11.03.24 - 10:32 a.m. | #

When I first came down to London to go to University College I just caught the end of the grand Euston Arch that was at the front of the station facing the Euston Road, as well as the grand old station building itself before they were all demolished. Then came the big widening and the underpass which curiously left all the scruffy little shops on the south side intact while building the new glassy offices on the north side, including the home of Capital Radio.

ActonMan | 11.03.24 - 10:47 a.m. | #

The old Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital on the Euston Road is now basically just the frontage with new build in behind for UNISON. It was, originally, a hospital for women run by women, in the days when women frequently were not members of a “profession “, particularly medical. In the late 1940s/early 1950s my mother was Chief Pharmacist at the EGA, leaving there in 1954 when I was born to move to run a retail pharmacy in Kent. I have always been extremely proud of her achievements, and always perk up my ears at mention of The EGA!

Ann | 11.03.24 - 10:48 a.m. | #

I have never seen anyone trying to sleep on the benches you mention on the 'thin strip of public realm' next to the underpass. But the pavement opposite, by bus stop V, often has overnight residents. The pavement there has the advantage of an overhanging office which might provide some shelter in wet weather. I think that their cardboard bedding gets moved over the road during the day for storage, although that's only my guess.

JonathanC | 11.03.24 - 11:06 a.m. | #

In the paragraph about Euston Station I initially misread "fresh" as "free", and nearly ran out of the office in that direction there and then.

James Matcham | 11.03.24 - 11:13 a.m. | #

Not on Euston Road itself, but visible from it a short walk up North Gower Street is Speedy's the "Sherlock cafe" where the exterior scenes of 221b in the BBC drama were filmed.

Mikey C | 11.03.24 - 11:19 a.m. | #

Following in the hoof-prints of animals heading to Smithfield was my Great Grandfather when, as a boy around 1890, he arrived at Paddington Station fresh-faced from the west-country, and followed this road to a tenement in Clerkenwell.
After 2 decades of breathing London air he died of TB aged 30!

Cornish Cockney | 11.03.24 - 11:37 a.m. | #

Surprise you didn't mention the Standard hotel where they added a few floors a couple of years ago and yanked on a red external lift with the hotel's name upside down.

So is the 'temporary' taxi rank going to become permanent then?

dg writes: no.

A bit of a shame that the HS2 plans never included revamping the rather grim bus terminal neither (and making it more practical -- precious minutes lost there everytime a bus has to head off Euston Road and then come back on via the congested Grafton Place/Churchway -- shoutout to what has to be the worst hotel rooms ever on the G/F of the Travelodge directly on Grafton Place btw!).

I'm surprised Bloomsbury in general hasn't been pedestrianised more given the lack of through traffic routes and it being basically a campus. A day or two ago Euston Road was closed in front of the British Library and the buses had to divert via all the way up to Camden and then back down again so there really is no through traffic south of the road.

Thanks for the link for what Belgrove House will look like! Didn't know it'd be such a tall building or what it would become. Certainly a step up from what was there previously which was fairly grim (or more broadly speaking the gyratory and its surroundings are pretty grim).

matthieu1221 | 11.03.24 - 3:38 p.m. | #

A reminder that I can't mention everything along a street in 1200 words (caryatids and red lifts included).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.03.24 - 3:56 p.m. | #

When I was a small child in the early 90s, my family would occasionally get taxis between Euston and Paddington as part of the journey to and from West Country summer holidays.
The swoop down into the underpass always felt thrillingly futuristic.

Friar Sven | 12.03.24 - 5:39 p.m. | #

The graffiti on the lovely Euston lodge is depressing to see

Thomas | 16.03.24 - 10:36 a.m. | #











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