Lily Cole’s flat in the St Pancras clock tower is a historical treasure, says Gary Parkinson. Pic: Bex Walton/flickr

For almost 150 years it has been a part of London’s skyline – stunning, controversial, threatened and much-loved. Now, behind the glorious edifice of the St Pancras railway terminal, a sought-after slice of real estate is back on the market – and being sold by a famous face.

Nowadays St Pancras is perhaps best known as London’s Eurostar terminal, but 150 years ago it was the capital terminus for the ambitious Midland Railway Company. Desiring a statement hotel on this prime site, the Midland plumped for the extravagant blueprint of Albert Memorial designer George Gilbert Scott – despite his plans providing twice as many rooms as they’d requested. 

Opened in 1873 and completed in 1876, the Midland Grand Hotel was a marvel, with gold leaf walls, hydraulic lifts and revolving doors behind the ornate Gothic Revival frontage. But it was a drain on resources and quickly outmoded, especially with its lack of en-suite bathrooms, and closed in 1935. (Scott’s son George Gilbert Scott Jr, also an architect, died there of cirrhosis of the liver; his son, Giles Gilbert Scott, designed Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral and the famous red phone box.)

Relegated to decades of decline as railway offices, the hotel was threatened with demolition but vigorously defended by the Victorian Society and Grade I-listed in 1967. After British Rail abandoned the increasingly unsafe site in the 1980s, the building stood derelict until extensive renovation just over a decade ago, at which the hotel reopened and the upper floors were redeveloped into private apartments. 

One of these is the two-bedroom apartment in the clock tower, recently featured on Channel 4’s Britain’s Most Expensive Houses and yours for £4.6 million. While the programme-makers were coy about the “actress” owner, it turns out to be the fittingly multi-faceted Lily Cole – not just an actress but a model turned entrepreneur.

Cole knows the value of a good look – she was on the cover of Vogue at 16 and gained a double first from Cambridge University in the history of art. She evidently also knows the value of a good purchase, having bought the second-floor flat for around £1.5m in 2009 during the building’s refurbishment.

Since then the 1,600 sq ft apartment has been quirkily but attractively renovated, including the recreation of the original hallway mosaics and ceiling in the double-height main lounge/kitchen. But one of the most notable features is new: the rainbow painted on the arch leading to the triple-aspect oriel bay window with Gothic stone mullions. 

If the rainbow – by Sir Peter Blake, best known for designing The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover – is lovably quirky, so is the subtle joy running around the picture rail: a model railway, created by a Dutch master craftsman as a fun reference to the building’s history.

That’s typical of the apartment’s well-judged respect for the past. Besides the cast-iron fireplaces and stained-glass doors, and the reclaimed wooden kitchen cabinetry topped with multicoloured Victorian tiles, Cole found a staircase in a salvage yard and had it installed in one of the bedrooms – both of which are split-level, the better to enjoy the airy upper reaches of these high-ceilinged rooms. 

Accessed by a floating wooden staircase, the mezzanine area above the larger bedroom includes a free-standing copper bathtub, while the enclosed bathroom below it features striking green tiles and Moroccan deer-head taps.

The second bedroom also has its own staircase – Lily’s salvage job, this time wrought iron for industrial chic – ascending to an idyllic mezzanine reading area, for thoughtful relaxing while surveying the bustling street below through those Gothic windows. 

It’s a beautiful space in a stunning apartment – and now that Cole, her husband Kwame Ferreira and their five-year-old daughter Wylde are vacating the premises, it’s one that could be yours… if you can pony up the £4.6m.

St Pancras Chambers, £4.6m, sothebysrealty.com

Originally commissioned by Metro for 14 Dec 2021, but spiked