Luggage storage at St Pancras Station: your 2023 guide
Have you just arrived at St Pancras International Station in London? Perhaps you’ve hopped on the Eurostar from somewhere in Europe, and this is where you’ve arrived into. However, St Pancras is not just a station on the Eurostar. It’s one of the major London transport hubs, with an attached underground station, and services many regional and national trains. So wherever you’re coming from or going with luggage, you might have a need to store some baggage at the station that you won’t need on the next leg of your trip before returning and picking it up again. This article gives a short guide on what’s your best strategy if you need to store some luggage in lockers or at the left baggage office, as well as giving a little bit of information about the station.
St. Pancras International is situated on Euston Road in the central London borough of Camden. This station is housed in a striking, iconic Victorian building, complete with a clock tower and glass roof. It is named after the local parish of St. Pancras who was a fourth-century boy martyr from Ancient Rome. The station serves as a terminal for Eurostar trains arriving from mainland Europe, linking London to Amsterdam, Paris, and Brussels. St. Pancras station is also a shopping destination with a plethora of restaurants and bars, including Europe’s longest champagne bar! The neighboring King’s Cross station is one of the largest train stations in the UK with a huge amount of commuter, regional, and national trains stopping through. The two stations share an underground station called King’s Cross St. Pancras, a very useful stop for getting around London as it’s on the Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan, Victoria, Piccadilly, and Northern lines. However, you won’t find yourself around St. Pancras International only to catch a train; there’s so much to do in this vibrant area of London, which we will discuss below.
Do UK train stations have luggage storage?
Most major London train stations, such as Paddington, Euston, Waterloo, Liverpool Street, King’s Cross and St Pancras International, Charing Cross, and Victoria, offer left luggage facilities in the form of lockers for bags. However, outside of London, the situation is different. In many regional towns and stations, security measures like X-Ray scanning and bag checks are not feasible due to cost, and therefore left luggage services are not provided by the stations. Therefore, it might be a little difficult to find luggage storage if you’ve arrived in a small country town. In larger British towns and cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Edinburgh, the biggest and busiest train stations have luggage storage lockers available for several hours or days.
Even if the train station does not offer left luggage service, there are several that offer luggage storage locations, which are explained in detail below. These companies have partner locations near major train stations, landmarks, transport hubs, airports, and other locations where you can safely store your luggage items until you need them again. However, these services might not be operated in small towns or villages. However, you’ll almost certainly have some sort of luggage storage option to store a bag when you get into a major train station anywhere in the UK.
Top 5 activities around St Pancras International
St Pancras is one of the best locations for getting straight into a deep exploration of London. Not only is it a transport hub and terminus of the Eurostar from where you’ll be able to access the rest of the city with ease, but there are actually loads of things around the station for you to enjoy and be entertained by while your luggage is safely stored. Whether you have a few hours, an entire day, or more ahead of you, here are some St Pancras travel tips!
1. Camden Town
For example, St Pancras is located a short walk of around 20 minutes away from Camden Town. This is one of the most vibrant, quirky, and fun neighborhoods in the whole city. It’s famous for its street market, where just about anything under the sun can be bought, and some of the best street food in the city. It’s also famous for its great bars, so coming here in the evening time is a great idea, and chill out beside the canal with a beer in hand if the weather’s nice! There are also some of London’s most iconic music venues here, like the Electric Ballroom and the Roundhouse. Check out the amazing street art in Camden also, or enjoy beautiful green spaces such as Regent’s park or Primrose Hill.
2. The British Museum
Another great thing to see nearby is the British Museum, undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest museums. From the moment you step inside, you’re transported to a world of wonder and discovery. The sheer scale of the collection is breathtaking, with over eight million objects from all corners of the globe, spanning thousands of years of history. From Egyptian mummies, and Greek and Roman sculptures, to artifacts from the Far East, there’s something here to capture your imagination. The building itself is a stunning example of neo-classical architecture. The grandeur of the Great Court, with its glass roof and towering columns, is matched only by the treasures housed within. Admission is also free!
3. Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross station
The Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross station is also one of London’s most popular locations. In the Harry Potter books and films, a magical platform (9 3/4) at Kings Cross station would take wizards on a train to Hogwarts, but only if they ran at the brick wall at this platform fast enough! Open all year long, the shop located inside the station is a must-visit for any Harry Potter fan while in London, with some unique merchandise and souvenirs being sold here.
4. British Library
The British Library is also near St Pancras, the national library of the United Kingdom. It holds over 170 million items from all over the world, including books, manuscripts, maps, stamps, and more. The library was established in 1973, and its current building was opened in 1997. It is one of the largest open libraries in the world and a major research center for scholars, and amazing first-edition prints, old maps, and medieval manuscripts are contained here. The library also houses exhibitions and events, and its collections are available to the public for research and study.
5. St Pancras Renaissance Hotel
Finally, you should check out the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Located in a truly incredible Victorian building just across the road from the station, this is an ideal place to stay if you are traveling in or out of the station. However, understandably considering the incredibly luxurious building, it’s pretty expensive to stay here. However, you should still pop in for afternoon tea at least for a quintessentially English experience in a glamorous, high-end setting.
Services available at St Pancras Station
Around the station, St Pancras Station has some essential facilities to help travelers every day. Things like free Wi-Fi, baby changing facilities (Changing Places toilets for the disabled can be found at King’s Cross), public phones, charging points, photo booths, and a pharmacy inside Boots. You’ll also have to go across to King’s Cross for cash withdrawal. Hungry after hopping off the Eurostar? There are lots of places to eat, from delicious Italian food like Carluccio’s and Remoli, to Prime Burger and of course a satisfying Gregg’s, among many others. There are loads of places to sit and enjoy a coffee, from a Starbucks to something a little more upmarket like Benugo Espresso Bar. You’ll also are a couple of good places to grab a drink too – we especially like The Betjeman Arms. You can also do some clothes shopping at Calvin Klein or Levi Jeans, for example, or get home accessories at The White Company. There’s lots of shopping to be done!
Baggage service St Pancras
St Pancras offers several storage options, including Excess Baggage, a partner company of the station. They provide secure storage for luggage and are flexible with the size of your bags as well as the duration of use, but they can be pricey. For example, even leaving a bag here for three hours will cost £7.50, and a full day of storage costs $15 pounds. There are luggage storage apps like LuggageHero which put you in contact with partner locations after booking online and offer hourly rates but can be relatively costly at £8.95 per item per day. Bounce and other luggage storage services often have hidden fees that drive the price of storage up, even if you only need short-term luggage storage. The most recommended option to store luggage in our opinion is Nannybag, with a flat rate of €6 per item per day, no hidden charges, and financial protection for your item up to €1000. Nannybag also has an easy online booking process and positive reviews from travelers.
Download the best travel hack!
For anyone needing to store a bag at St Pancras or other locations in London (or any major city where you’re visiting), we recommend using Nannybag’s service to book luggage lockers. It is super user-friendly, both online and on their app. Enter your location, select a nearby partner location, make your booking, drop off, and go. You can have peace of mind knowing your bag is secure with a biodegradable safety seal while you enjoy central London without any luggage, and your item is protected for up to €1000 in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong. Its flat rate of £6 per item per day makes it one of the cheapest options.
FAQ
- Where can I exchange money at St Pancras? You can find multiple bureau de change locations across from the station on Euston Road, and there is also an International Currency Exchange office within the main terminal of the station.
- Is St Pancras accessible? All platforms at the station are wheelchair accessible, thanks to ramps. There is also step-free access to the adjacent underground station and to Kings Cross Station.
- Where is the lost & found in St Pancras St Pancras has a lost property office that can be reached by contacting customerservice@excess-baggage.com. If you lost something on a Eurostar train, email lost.property@eurostar.com.
- When is St Pancras open? St Pancras station’s opening times are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Where to leave my bags in St Pancras? St Pancras has a left luggage service operated by Excess Baggage Company, but this is quite expensive, especially if you need to store bags for more than a few hours. We recommend using Nannybag. Their service is cheap, easy to use, secure, and reliable. Find a nearby location to the station using their app or website.
Feel free to hit the comment section if you have more questions about luggage storage at St Pancras train station and how to travel there.