The goods yard behind the two stations was rebuilt after 2007. The granary and the coal drop sheds are still there and doing other jobs.
What King's Cross looks like
King's Cross and St Pancras stand next to each other on . The Great Northern Railway opened King's Cross in 1852 to a design by Lewis Cubitt, two arched train sheds behind a plain brick front that repeats their shape. North of the platforms the railway built a granary and a row of , and a gasworks beside them.
Almost all of that ground has been rebuilt since 2007. The granary has been since 2011. It faces , which has 1,080 water jets set flush in the paving. The two coal drop sheds reopened as shops in October 2018, under a roof by Thomas Heatherwick that joins them across the yard. The gasworks closed in 2000. Four of its cast iron gasholders were taken apart, restored in Yorkshire and put back up in new positions. One of them now stands around a public garden and three have flats inside them.
The runs along the north side of the yard. Brick goods buildings sit straight on the towpath. is on the opposite bank, woodland and a pond against the lines into St Pancras.
The station buildings changed over the same years. The sheds were restored and reglazed rather than replaced. The semicircular western concourse behind the Great Northern Hotel opened in March 2012. The 1972 building that stood across the front came down at the same time and that ground is an open plaza now.
The Thameslink station on closed on 9 December 2007. Its platforms are still there in the cutting.
Films shot in King's Cross
The goods yard behind the stations was rebuilt after 2007. The cobbled road under the gasometers, where the gang rob the security van in The Ladykillers, went with it. The stations are the part that still works as a set.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2001
There is no wall between platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross. Those two are in a separate building with a pair of tracks in between. The crew used the brick arches that carry the shed roof between platforms 4 and 5 instead, and that is what Harry runs at. The trolley in the wall is a later addition. A sign went up in 2003 and the trolley by 2005. Both are in the western concourse rather than on the platform that was filmed.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002
Temporary buildings covered the front of King's Cross until 2012, so the films used St Pancras next door for the outside of the station. The Ford Anglia lifts off in front of George Gilbert Scott's Gothic red brick hotel on . Wonder Woman went the other way in 2017 and used two King's Cross platforms as Paddington in 1918, with vintage stock brought up from the Bluebell Railway in Sussex.
What King's Cross can double for
King's Cross can stand in for a Victorian railway yard, a rebuilt industrial quarter and a mainline terminus.
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