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The Betjeman statue will grace the new St Pancras station |
The Betjeman statue now on platform…
SIR John Betjeman will grace a platform at the new St Pancras station in November, the New Journal can exclusively reveal.
A statue of the Poet Laureate, who died in 1984, has been commissioned by London and Continental Railways, which has renovated and extended the station to receive high-speed Channel tunnel trains from November.
The statue will stand in the Victorian station, designed by engineer William Barlow, which Betjeman fought to save from demolition in 1967.
The one-and-a-half metre high bronze statue will look upwards at a clock, which has a fascinating tale behind it.
In the late 1960s British Rail decided to sell the Victorian clock to an American collector for £250,000, but it was broken, apparently beyond repair, when it fell while being removed.
The deal was scuppered and workers told to throw the clock on a skip.
But a train driver gave a work foreman £10, gathered up the pieces and took it home. He spent the next two decades re-assembling the pieces of Welsh slate the clock was built with, and then stuck it on the side of a barn at his Midlands home.
When the renovation team heard of the clock’s fate, they set out to find it at the home of the retired train driver, now aged 93.
Sadly, according to station bosses, it was “more glue than clock”, but the original clockmakers were traced.
Dent, a Newcastle firm also responsible for the clock faces at the Houses of Parliament, took measurements of the clock and is now building a precise replica.
Station project director Mike Luddy said the clock was part of an attempt to create a striking gateway to the capital for travellers coming from Europe.
He said: “When it was put up it was part of a plan to make St Pancras the best station in London. But in the 1960s, it was not valued and they flogged it to an American.”
Mr Luddy added: “The clock will look fantastic, and the Betjeman statue will pay homage to one of the people who worked so hard to save the station from demolition, and is responsible for the fact it is still with us today.”
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