Last week the long awaited new entrance to King’s Cross stationed opened to the public. Probably most famous as the starting location for Harry Potter’s visits to Hogwarts, it has undergone a major makeover.

This is the station where services go up the East Coast mainline, serving Peterborough, Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Suburban services also run from here.

Located to the West of the old entrance, and between King’s Cross and St. Pancras, the new atrium provides a whole new range of shops, restaurants and cafes. Nowhere near as large as the shopping at St.Pancras, nonetheless it is a huge improvement on the old entrance.

Based on two levels, with some nice ‘sit down’ restaurants on the upper level (reached by escalators at the south and north end), the toilets (pay) are located there also.

The steel work you can see above the entrance leads inside, creating a feeling of the outdoors extending inside.

 

 

The internal lattice is partially covered with steel and glass. This allows light to flood in to the waiting area, as well as provide a great area to uplight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The enclosed area is lit purple and looks excellent:

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no seating areas except in and around the restaurants. To be fair the old entrance only had a few, but they were there.