The Euston Arch, built in 1837 (and demolished in 1962), was the original entrance to Euston station, facing onto Drummond Street, London. The arch was demolished when the station was rebuilt in the 1960s, but much of the original stone was later located—principally used as fill in the Prescott Channel—and proposals have been formulated to reconstruct it as part of the planned redevelopment of the station, including the station's use as the London terminus of the High Speed 2 line.
When Euston station was redeveloped, Drummond Street was split into two parts, on either side of the station complex, with the eastern half renamed Doric Way, after the style of the arch.
Construction
Designed by the architect Philip Hardwick, it was inspired by the Roman architecture Hardwick encountered on a trip to Italy in 1818 and 1819. Strictly speaking it was not an arch at all, but a propylaeum of the Doric order. The sandstone structure was designed for the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), complementing Birmingham Curzon Street station, at the other end of the company's mainline. The arch was to be not only a fitting gateway to the Midlands, but to the whole new world which the railway was to open up.
The construction of the arch was announced by the directors of the L&BR in a report dated February 1837:
The arch was supported on four columns, and bronze gates were placed behind them. It stood and , while the diameter of each of the columns was . The structure was built from stone from Bramley in West Yorkshire, and cost £35,000. Initially it had very little embellishment and no descriptive title until 1870, when the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) incised "Euston" on the architrave in letters of gold. There were two lodges on each side of the arch, executed like it in strictly classical style. Each of these lodges was separated from its neighbour by an imposing pair of bronze gates. One of the gates between the lodges operated as an entrance for carriages and very heavy goods going by train, while one of the lodges was an office for outgoing parcels.
The traveller would drive through the arch into an oblong courtyard running north to south and enclosed by a brick wall nearly and . On the eastern side (the arriving traveller's right) was a range of offices behind a colonnade of pillars.
The arch was not admired by everyone in its early years. A guide to London published at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 described it as "gigantic and very absurd", and placed "without reference to the courtyard it leads to". The British Almanac for 1839 remarked that it was "noble", emphasising the purity of its style, but stated that "it was not necessary, as in the case of many porticoes to country houses, to have sash windows peeping out between Doric columns; the perfection of the style could be maintained and should be appreciated."
The addition of the station name was part of station improvements in 1869–74 which also saw the creation of an entrance drive from the Euston Road to the portico. In 1881, however, the westernmost pier and lodge of the arch structure were demolished to make way for offices, and soon afterwards a hotel extension blocked the view from Euston Road.
Following the First World War, the LNWR built a war memorial in the form of an obelisk on the entrance drive, designed to be in alignment with the arch and lodges. The war memorial survived the 1960s redevelopment and is a listed building.
Removal
1938 proposal
A suggestion to move the arch was made in 1938 by the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS), which proposed rebuilding Euston Station according to an American-inspired design by Percy Thomas, a respected architect hired with the help of a loan provided by the government. After returning from a tour of modern stations in the United States, Thomas proposed a large stripped-Classical block with wings, which incorporated a hotel, offices and the station. This plan involved removing the Euston Arch. Gerald Wellesley and Albert Richardson of the Georgian Group, a conservation organisation, managed to persuade Lord Stamp, chairman of the LMS, that it could be resited on the Euston Road, even though Thomas had insisted that it would not be possible to move it. Ultimately these plans for reconstruction were never realised as the Second World War began the following year.
1960 proposal
In January 1960 the British Transport Commission served the London County Council (LCC) (the local planning authority) with notice of its intention to demolish Euston station.