New Futures for Birmingham`s Historic Buildings

Is Euston Arch going to be rebuilt?

Posted August 18th, 2008 by Birmingham Conservation Trust with No Comments

Euston arch being demolished.

Blognor Regis points us to this interesting piece in the Daily Telegraph about Dan Cruickshank’s campaign to see Euston Arch Rebuilt when Euston Station is redeveloped sometime during or after 2012. The website provides some context:

The failure to save the arch was a bitter and public defeat for the forces of civilization – headed by Sir John Betjeman and the Victorian Society – and a gruesome victory for the penny-pinching forces of crude Modernisation headed by British Railways, aided and abetted by the then British Government.

But the loss of the Euston Arch – an event that shocked and appalled the British public – helped to kick-start the conservation movement. Never, it was felt, should such a gross act of barbarism ever again be committed in the public’s name yet against the public’s desire. In a very direct manner the sacrifice of the Euston Arch saved the station buildings at St Pancras and Kings Cross because it was clear to both British Railways and to politicians that such cavalier and brutish conduct – pursued in the face of popular opinion – dared not be repeated.

This would be a wonderful complement to Curzon Street, the other end of the world’s first railway trunk line Euston to Curzon Street.

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