The old Midland Grand is one of the great buildings of Victorian London, and for a long time it was very nearly lost. George Gilbert Scott designed it as the hotel fronting St Pancras station; the east wing opened on 5 May 1873 and the whole was finished by 1876, a riot of Gothic Revival brick, arches and spires that Londoners have been arguing about ever since. It closed as a hotel in 1935 and spent decades as railway offices, and British Rail wanted it pulled down. The Victorian Society fought them off, Grade I listing followed in 1967, and after an enormous restoration the building reopened as a hotel on 14 March 2011 — 138 years to the day after it first took guests.
Inside, that restoration is the thing. The Grand Staircase, cantilevered and stencilled and lit from far above, is one of the most photographed interiors in the city, and it is licensed for ceremonies of up to 50, which is an extraordinary sentence to be able to write. The hotel now runs to 207 rooms and 38 suites alongside its restaurants and bars, including the Booking Office in the station’s old ticket hall, so your guests can stay, eat and celebrate in the same building and step straight onto the Underground, a mainline train or the Eurostar the next morning.
There is a licensed room here for almost any size of wedding. Hansom Hall, the vast space beneath the station’s old carriage ramp, takes up to 375 for a ceremony and seats 280 for dinner across some 4,850 square feet, with its own private terrace for drinks. The Gallery holds 250 and the Ladies Smoking Room 100, and there are more intimate options in the Exchange, the Quarters, the Billiard Room and the Station Masters Office for anything from 60 guests down to 20.
Where the band plays
Hansom Hall is the obvious room for live music. It is big, it already has a stage, screens and a PA installed, and it swallows a full band and a dance floor without complaint once the tables are cleared. The scale is theatrical, and brass in particular sounds magnificent in a room like this; because the infrastructure is already in place, a band’s set-up here is far simpler than it would be in a bare historic space. For a smaller wedding the Ladies Smoking Room and the Gallery make handsome party rooms, though the line-up should be scaled to match.
Logistics in the middle of London
A central London hotel is a different proposition from a country house, and mostly in your favour: guests can arrive by train from anywhere in the country, nobody needs a taxi home, and the events team handles the choreography of the day. Set the finish time and any restriction on amplified music with them when you book — a hotel with 207 occupied bedrooms has its own considerations — and pass both to your band so they can shape their sets around it. Load-in is the one thing to square away early, since parking at King’s Cross is exactly what you would imagine, so ask about access, unloading and where equipment can be left before and after the party.
Bands available in London and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in London.
- Wedding Bands in London
- Events Bands in London
- London Tribute Acts
- London Wedding DJs
- London Corporate Entertainment
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.