ST. PANCRAS, a northern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded east by Islington, south-east by Finsbury, south by Holborn and west by St. Marylebone and Hampstead, and extending north to the boundary of the county of London. Popu lation (1931) 198,113. In the centre of the borough are Cam den Town and Kentish Town and the three great railway termini of Euston, St. Pancras and King's Cross, with their extensive goods depots and adjacent hotels. To the south of this lies the residential district of Bloomsbury, one mainly of boarding houses and private hotels, and with several fine squares. Still further south is a shopping district adjoining the main shopping thorough fares. North of the railway stations are the residential districts adjoining Hampstead Heath and Regent's Park, including Gospel Gate, part of Highgate and the Holly Lodge Estate (the property of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts), which was bought in 1923 for a garden suburb. In the northern part also are considerable open spaces, the largest of which are Waterlow Park, part of Regent's Park, Parliament Hill and Fields (bought for the public in 1886) and Ken Wood, purchased in 1919. The last contains Ken Wood House, with a noted collection of pictures.
A thoroughfare, called successively Tottenham Court Road, Hampstead Road, High Street Camden Town, Kentish Town Road, and Highgate Road, runs from south to north ; Euston Road crosses it in the south, and Camden Road and Chalk Farm Road branch from it at Camden Town. The parish church of St. Pancras in the Fields, near Pancras Road, has lost its ancient character owing to reconstruction, though retaining several early monuments. Among institutions, University College, Gower Street, was founded in 1826, and provides education in all branches common to universities excepting theology. With the department of medicine is connected the University College Hospital (1833) opposite the College. There are several other hospitals ; among
them the Royal Free Hospital (Gray's Inn Road) ; the North-west London hospital, Kentish Town; and, in Euston Road, the British (Forbes Winslow memorial) hospital for mental disorders, British hospital for skin diseases ; and the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital for Women. The site of the Foundling Hospital (in the old Lamb's Conduit Fields) has been purchased for a playground for children, the hospital having moved to the country.
Other institutions are the London School of Medicine for Women, the Royal Veterinary College and the Aldenham Technical Institute. The Passmore Edwards Settlement, named for its principal benefactor, was founded largely through the instru mentality of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Near Regent's Park is the site of Cumberland Market which has long been closed. The parliamentary borough of St. Pancras has north, south-east and west divisions, each returning one member. A large number of the inhabitants of the borough, particularly in the central part are employed in work connected with the railways. There are also furniture and piano-making industries which employ many people.
St. Pancras is mentioned in Domesday as belonging to the chap ter of St. Paul's Cathedral, in which body the lordship of the manors of Cantelows (Kentish Town) and Tbtenhall (Tottenham Court) was invested. Camden Town takes its name from Baron Camden (d. '794), lord chancellor under George III. King's Cross was so called from a statue of George IV., erected in 1830, greatly ridiculed and removed in 1845, but an earlier name, Battle Bridge, is traditionally derived from the stand of Queen Boadicea against the Romans, or from one of Alfred's contests with the Danes.