Two arched Victorian train sheds behind a plain brick front, and the platforms the Harry Potter films used for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
What King's Cross looks like
Two arched train sheds from 1852 stand behind a plain brick front on , a square Italianate clock tower over the middle of it and no other ornament on the elevation. An open plaza runs the width of the forecourt. West of the sheds a semicircular concourse fans a white steel lattice out from a single point in the floor.
North of the platforms, occupies a six storey brick granary. It faces , where water jets are set flush in the paving. New office blocks stand around Pancras Square to the south, over pale stone paving. The two face each other across a cobbled yard, the eastern one a three storey brick shed of forty-eight bays on cast iron columns. A twisted slate roof joins them overhead and shop units fill the bays beneath.
The runs along the foot of Granary Square and bends north west past the coal drops, brick goods buildings standing straight out of the water. comes down to the far bank, woodland and a pond against the lines into St Pancras. Cast iron gasholder frames stand north of the canal, one around a public garden and three with flats built inside them.
A disused platform sits in a cutting off , brick walls with faded painted lettering and Do Not Alight Here signs. Weeds grow through the ballast between the rails.
Shot in King's Cross
The armoured car robbery in The Ladykillers was shot on the cobbles of Battle Bridge Road, under gasholder frames on Goods Way that no longer stand there. The Harry Potter films worked inside the station and used St Pancras next door for anything showing it from the road. Wonder Woman closed two platforms for two days to bring vintage carriages in from the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2001
Played Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
The Hogwarts Express leaves from a platform that does not exist, and the crew used the arched brick wall between platforms 4 and 5 as the barrier Harry runs at. Ticket gates control the platforms now, so the run is no longer reachable from the public concourse.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002
The Weasleys' Ford Anglia lifts off in front of St Pancras, and its red brick Gothic hotel front is what the films show whenever the outside of the station is on screen. Euston Road runs the whole width of the frontage, so a clear frame of that front means shooting from the far pavement.
Wonder Woman shot these platforms as Paddington station in 1918, since the real Paddington has been modernised past the period. The Victorian train sheds and the brick arches over the platforms here have not. The glazed western concourse opens off the ends of the platforms, so a period frame has to face north up the platform and hold it out of shot. Try searching Victorian train shed platforms now.
Castlefield's brick warehouses stand flush with the water for direct loading, the same edge the goods buildings make on the Regent's Canal here. The Merchants' Warehouse and the Middle Warehouse run four and five storeys and date from the 1820s and 1830s, so the scale is close. Manchester's multi arch railway viaducts cross the basin overhead and nothing here matches them, so a wide shot has to stay low on the towpath. Try searching brick canal warehouses now.
The coal drops and the cobbled yard between them match the Distillery District's brick industrial lanes, which hold more than forty Victorian buildings dating from 1859 onward. Toronto's lanes are brick paved rather than granite setts and its buildings sit lower. The twisted slate roof over the coal drops has no counterpart there. New office blocks above Pancras Square appear in any raised shot, so keep the camera down at lane level. Try searching Victorian industrial brick lanes now.
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