| Summary : The Metropolitan Railway's King's Cross underground station opened on 10th January 1863 as an intermediate station on the line from Bishop's Road (Paddington) to Farringdon Street. Sir John Fowler was the engineer-in-chief for the Metropolitan, and Thomas Marr Johnson the resident engineer, but the station building was probably designed by the architect John Hargrave Stevens. The station remained little altered until 1911-12 when tramway electrification in the area resulted in the construction of a new station building on the corner of Pentonville Road and King's Cross Bridge. In 1925 the station was renamed King's Cross & St. Pancras, the "&" being dropped in 1933. In 1941 the LPTB closed the Circle Line platforms and replaced them with a new station to the west to improve interchange with the Northern and Piccadilly Lines (see TQ 38 SW 1869). The platforms for the LMSR and LNER trains remained opened with the station eventually closing to passenger traffic in 1979. On 11th July 1983 the station reopened as King's Cross Midland City and was renamed King's Cross Thameslink on 16th May 1988. |