Escorts in King's Cross, N1C, from the entrance and the lift to your door

The Gothic front: NW1 2AR

NW1 2AR occupies the Victorian railway hotel it was built as, the red brick Gothic pile that forms the face of St Pancras. Its rooms come in two kinds. The Chambers, in the original building, are high ceilinged and full of Victorian detail, reached by way of the famous grand staircase. The Barlow wing, a modern extension along the side of the train shed, has larger and more ordinary rooms.

The hotel is reached from Euston Road. Late at night the lobby is quiet, and the bar in the old ticket hall is often still serving. Tell the desk which wing you are in: the walk from the lobby to a Chambers room is long, and meeting at the foot of the stairs makes sense.

The curved one: N1C 4TB

N1C 4TB, opened in 1854, follows the curve of Pancras Road beside King’s Cross. It has two ways in: a street door on Pancras Road and an entrance straight onto the station’s Western Concourse. Its corridors bend with the building, and its rooms are smaller and more intimate than those of the Gothic giant across the road.

For a visitor after the last trains, the street door is the one to use, because the concourse closes overnight. The hotel is small enough for the evening staff to notice who comes in, so meeting her in the lobby and going up together keeps things natural.

Euston Road blocks: the red lift and the plain one

WC1H 8EG sits opposite St Pancras in a 1970s concrete building that once held council offices, now reworked with a red, pill shaped lift running up its outside wall to a rooftop restaurant. The ground floor is a lounge lined with books, busy until late and easy to cross.

NW1 2AJ is the plain, efficient one: a big modern block on Euston Road with a large lobby, a bar and hundreds of rooms, used by conference guests and rail travellers. It is the kind of hotel where nobody looks up. She walks to the lifts, or meets you at the bar if the lifts need a key.

Trains, late arrivals and the Eurostar

Most guests here came by train: the East Coast line from Edinburgh and York into King's Cross, the Midland line from Sheffield and Nottingham into St Pancras, and the Eurostar from Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. A late Eurostar pulling in at 22:30 means a guest in the room by 23:00 and someone knocking soon after midnight.

At that time of night companions come by car along Euston Road from the West End or Marylebone, and Harriet quotes about an hour from the go ahead to the knock. Earlier in the evening the road is slower, and the desk adds the difference to the quote rather than hoping for the best.

Choosing a quiet room

The stations close for a few hours after the last trains, so the hotels are at their stillest in the small hours. Euston Road is another matter: traffic runs along it all night. If you want a quiet evening, ask your hotel for a room on the inside of the building, away from the main road. At NW1 2AR that usually means the Barlow wing; at N1C 4TB, the side facing the station rather than the street.

Who books beside the platforms

Eurostar passengers on a first night in London. Visitors here for a conference at the Crick Institute or a day of meetings around the canal. Travellers on the first train north at 06:00, sleeping a minute from the platform. The booking is usually short and late: an hour or two once the bags are down, then an early night. The how a hotel visit works briefing sets out the whole sequence.