The Athenian revolution

SOME 200 years ago, Euston Square in north London began a miraculous transformation into a corner of ancient Greece. The change began between 1819 and 1822, when St Pancras Church was built for the huge sum of £76,679. It was the most expensive church to be built in the capital since St Paul’s Cathedral a century earlier and had a capacity of 2,500 and the latest technology in underfloor heating. It’s architectural detailing, however, was largely drawn from ancient buildings in Athens.

‘ It is “the parish church, par excellence, of Regency England” ’

The Tower of the Winds, a water clock and weathervane built in 50BC, for example, inspired the church steeple (which was topped by a Corinthian capital, removed in 1953). From the Erechtheum, built on the Acropolis in about 400BC, the church porch borrows not only the vast Ionic capitals that dignify the portico , but also the groups of caryatids that guard the transepts. The St Pancras caryatids are different from the originals in that they carry water jugs and extinguished, inverted torches, symbols of mortality, to show they preside over burial vaults. They are also a little