In the early 20th century,
St Pancras Borough Council was based at the 19th century
vestry offices in
St Pancras Way which had been commissioned for the Parish of
St Pancras. After civic leaders found that the vestry offices were inadequate for their needs, they elected to construct a purpose-built facility: the site selected on Euston Road had previously been occupied by some Georgian terraced housing. The new building was designed by Albert Thomas, who also designed housing schemes for the St Pancras Borough Council, in the
neoclassical style. In May 1957, the new submarine cable system,
TAT-1, was used to transmit a concert by the singer and civil rights activist,
Paul Robeson, performing in
New York City to an audience in the town hall. A "Caribbean Carnival", a precursor of the
Notting Hill Carnival, was held on 30 January 1959 in the town hall, organised by activist
Claudia Jones as a response to the
1958 Notting Hill race riots and the state of race relations in Britain at the time. A few months later, on 27 May 1959,
Princess Margaret attended a meeting of the
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the town hall. The building served as the headquarters of the
Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and continued to operate as the local seat of government after the formation of the
London Borough of Camden in 1965. A rooftop conservatory was added in the 1990s. The council vacated the Town Hall Annexe in 2014, moving its main offices to a new building at 5 Pancras Square. The Town Hall Annexe was subsequently converted into a hotel, which opened in 2019. In February 2020 the council started a programme of refurbishment works to the 1937 building, to plans prepared by
Purcell. The works, which were managed by
Lendlease at an estimated cost of £40 million, involved restoration of the historic areas used by the council and the redevelopment of the basement and upper floors so those floors can be let out as commercial space. The town hall reopened in 2023, serving once again as the council's meeting place and as an events venue. ==References==