As bits of historic London go, the high-Victorian neogothic fantasy of the old St Pancras station hotel is hard to beat. After long, sad years as railway offices — and the threat of demolition in the 1960s — the wonderful, down-at-heel complex was finally saved by the arrival of Eurostar, which gave it a purpose again. The hotel is being re-created, but there are flats there, too, in what is called St Pancras Chambers. All were sold off plan when the project was launched in 2005, but some are now back on the market.

The development is headed by Harry Handelsman, the man behind Manhattan Loft Corporation, which began in the loft-living market, but has diversified into more ambitious ventures, such as the revival of Ealing Studios.

At St Pancras, he was initially only going to take on the flats. Then the hotel chain involved decided it just wanted to do the operating. So Handelsman, 59, stepped in, taking on the hotel project, which involved a new wing at the back, as well as reinstating the original one at the front. Working with London and Continental Railways, which owns the railway stations and infrastructure along the high-speed route, Handelsman has invested about £175m. It’s taken years — work could not begin until the conversion of the old station into an international terminal and shopping centre was complete — but now the owners of the first flats are moving in. So I meet him for a tour.

Handelsman is a St Pancras enthusiast — except for the ghastly bronze statue of the not-quite-kissing couple on the station concourse. “I was hoping it might have gone by now,” he says, as we watch people take pictures of each other in front of it.

As far as he is concerned, though, everything else is good. “It’s a unique building,” he says. “It’s quirky, it’s interesting, a whole environment you’re buying into. You’re living somewhere that’s part palazzo, part train station and a piece of architectural history.”

What you need to know about St Pancras is it is two utterly different buildings shoved together. The station part, with its virtuoso column-free arched roof in iron and glass, was built first, by the engineer William Barlow. A little later, the Midland Grand Hotel (this being the Midland Railway) went up, to designs by George Gilbert Scott, the most successful architect of his day.Scott often designed churches, as well as the Foreign Office, in Whitehall. At St Pancras, he let his vivid gothic imagination run riot. So — this is so Victorian — you have something high-tech for its day, the train bit, hidden by something rampantly historicist, the hotel bit.

So far, 18 of the 67 flats have been completed, some of which resold, pre-crunch, at a significant premium. Among those who considered buying in the project was the model Lily Cole, who looked at a 1,313 sq ft flat on sale for £1.74m in 2007, when prices were at the peak, and Stanley Fink, the financier.

Prices have fallen back from the £1,300 per square foot being asked in those heady days to about £850, although this leaves them 10% or so above the launch price. Hugo Chance, a property consultant handling resales in conjunction with Knight Frank estate agency, says more than a dozen owners are now trying to sell. “Strangely, the lenders are treating it as new-build, so people are having to find as much as 35% for a deposit,” he says. “But it is perfect for short-or long-term lets, and in the long term it’s a good buy.”

Prices start at £700,000 for an 818 sq ft two-bedder to £1.25m for a 1,370 sq ft flat, but others are expected to come on the market. Both Hamptons and Knight Frank are handling sales.

Handelsman is also selling a couple of two-bedroom flats he kept back. He wants £770,000 for a 883 sq ft one at the back (two levels, with Scott’s mighty timber roof trusses crashing theatrically through the space) and £1.125m for a 1,238 sq ft one at the front — with a huge living room offering views across to the City of London through stone-framed gothic windows.

The old hotel being the eccentric place it is, the flats come in all shapes and sizes. Some are on one level, others on two or three; some are in the old hotel rooms, others in the former staff quarters, high in the steep, gabled roof. Because of the old hotel’s central corridor, some rooms look out onto the busy Euston Road, others out the back into — or over the top of — Barlow’s great train shed. (There is a gap between the two buildings, so you don’t get too much station noise.) The most dramatic one I saw could have been a film set for Frankenstein. Built in the clock tower on the eastern side of the building, it’s mad. The tower was never inhabited, except by pigeons and the occasional engineer who dropped by to wind up and adjust the mechanism. There is a great big, ridiculously tall room beneath the clock — now the main living room — which originally didn’t even have windows, only those angled louvres you find in church bell towers.

The space has been glazed, but the walls remain the original rough brick and an original filigree-thin iron staircase snakes up the walls into the clock chamber itself. This is out of bounds to residents, but Harry and I scramble up anyway. These days, the great clock, with its four glass faces, is electric, but it’s still amazing to be inside, rather than looking up at it from the street. Sadly, it is not for sale.

The conversion of the old hotel was not easy, especially it had to be carried out under the exacting eye of English Heritage. What’s good here is not just the flats, but the communal areas — the broad corridors and stately, becolumned staircases. Still, it’s a shame they have used such neutral tones: thick pale-beige carpet is everywhere, with sludgy paint colours on the walls. I crave more of the exuberant Victorian polychromy, the echoing Minton tiles.

Were it not for the high ceilings and characterful windows — and, of course, the great chunks of roof timbers through some of the flats — these might be tasteful-modern-loft apartments. The kitchens, bathrooms and so on are good but familiar. Handelsman knows the kind of fit-out that sells.

So who does this place most suit? It’s an exciting proposition, but the roar of Euston Road out front is not as evocative as the deep hum of the Eurostar trains out the back. It’s handy for the City, though, and works as a London pied-à-terre as much for people using trains to the north as for those shuttling to Paris or Brussels. The best thing, surely, is to be able to point at this extraordinary building and say casually: “Oh, yes, that’s where I live. Up there, sort of inside the clock.”

Additional reporting by Lucy Denyer

Manhattan Loft Corporation, 020 7631 1888; manhattanloft.co.uk;

Hamptons, 020 7586 9595, hamptons.co.uk

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