King's Cross (building)

The building was erected in 1830, as the base for a memorial to the recently deceased King George IV.

[3] It had an octagonal base with paired columns at each corner, a balustrade at first floor level intended to be decorated with four statues, one on each corner (either kings of England, or the patron saints of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; but it is not clear if any statues were ever put in place), rising to a pedestal with a clock.

It was constructed of bricks and mortar, and finished in a manner that gave it the appearance of stone, "at least to the eyes of common spectators".

It was one of the buildings criticised by Pugin in his 1836 polemical book Contrasts, which advocated a revival of the medieval Gothic style.

The building was demolished in 1845, with a report in The Illustrated London News mentioning its "grandiloquent name of King's Cross'".