One year and seven minutes to the Olympics

With just one year to go to the 2012 Olympics the Cambridge Society of London was back at St Pancras International to see the Central London portal to the Games. At the statue of Sir John Betjeman the irony was not lost on the gathering, cruelly denied as he was a Cambridge education and seldom remembered for sporting prowess! The group were rewarded with a peep inside the new St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, just reopened 5th May, followed by a visit to the ‘German Gymnasium’ constructed in the 1860s with links to the origins of the modern Olympics. Then off to the St Pancras platforms for the Olympic Javelin trains which will spirit spectators back and forth to Stratford, just seven minutes away. With the benefit of giant models and vantage points across the site, the whole King’s Cross development was viewed. We then followed the course of the buried Fleet River upstream to our reception venue in St Pancras Old Church, a millennium back in time and a wonderful venue for refreshments on a summer evening. The event was led by Lester Hillman (St Catharine’s 1970) who has spent a lifetime on the infrastructure works in the area and gave us great detail and also many amusing anecdotes about the history and development of the site. We have asked him to do other tours in future – the Fleet River, perhaps? – and we will keep up the pressure up!