by Stephen Bayley

Architecture and design correspondent for The Observer newspaper and co-founder of the Design Museum, London, Stephen Bailey looks at the development of Britain's first high speed railway in this lavishly illustrated book. The large format of the 224 pages are exploited to make the most of 500 colour pictures specially commissioned or taken from the archives, illustrating the designs, work in progress and final results.

A chronology covers the story of the Channel Tunnel from the flooding of the Anglo-German plain in perhaps 6000 BC to November 14 2007 and the inaugural service on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, by then rebranded as High Speed 1.

As well as technical matters, the book considers the challenge of combining modern buildings with the architectural grandeur of Scott's Midland Grand Hotel at London St Pancras station, and looks at the production of the much-debated 'Meeting Place' statue.

ISBN 978-1-8589-4398-5

£39·95 from Merrell Publishers 81 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX, UK www.merrellpublishers.com