Alexandra Palace: What Was It First For?
Osborne Cronin
2025-05-25 07:53:49
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The opening last Saturday of the Alexandra Palace and Park, at Muswell-hill, beyond Hornsey…was a pleasant festival to many thousands of visitors. The grounds are situated in the most agreeable part of Middlesex, exactly six miles from Charing-cross, but amidst rural scenery of delightful freshness, variety and beauty…220 acres, laid out in park and garden, on the summit of a range of green hills, adorned with flourishing oaks and elms…(with) views that cannot be surpassed in the neighbourhood of town.
The Alexandra Palace…is an edifice stately and dignified, as well as elegant…the architectural style is Italian with arabesque decorations in blue, grey and gold on a ground of chocolate brown…the lighting is…from ample side ranges of lofty windows and from two gorgeously coloured large round windows of painted glass at opposite ends of the nave. Stone coffers and vases of ornamental design containing a variety of flowering shrubs and plants, alternate with statues or groups of sculpture on pedestals along the nave. The grand organ…is an instrument of great size and musical power. There is a spacious and commodious concert-hall, with another organ…(and) a theatre nearly as big as that of Drury Lane.
The proposed activities promise much: “…flower shows and fruit shows, bird shows, cat shows, the picture galleries…collections of works of art, of antiquities…of natural curiosities. A marine aquarium is to be formed; horse shows, dog shows, pigeon-races, athletic sports, archery-matches, cricket-matches and displays of fireworks…Alexandra Park races in July and September with a very handsome grand stand…a series of six opera concerts.” On the actual opening day entertainment consisted of first: “…a flower show in the nave which was a very pretty sight…and a grand concert afterwards in the central transept…”
Lyda Considine
2025-05-21 02:29:23
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: 7
Alexandra Palace was designed as the ‘People’s Palace’ to provide entertainment and recreation for the masses. It opened on 24 May, 1873, only to burn down 16 days later. Reopening in 1875 Victorian Londoners descended en masse for festivals, fireworks, banquets, theatre and music. In 1900 an Act of Parliament placed the Park and Palace in public ownership, so it could remain ‘a place of public resort and recreation’ forever.
Anastasia Corwin
2025-05-11 00:51:44
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: 5
With ideals of “affording all classes of the community, on a grand scale, the means of intellectual improvement and physical recreation…” this building perched on top of the Muswell Hill in 450 acres of parkland looked, in Victorian splendour, across all of London. This palace of industry was to be a showcase of the Victorian age in all its vitality and abundance, and you sped there in 15 minutes from central London on the brand new form of transport – the railway! The mission statement of Alexandra Palace in the 19th century was not that different to our current aims: “relaxation – both physical and mental” designed to educate and entertain the working man (and woman) on their rare holidays.
Forrest Boyle
2025-05-11 00:01:14
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: 4
The first plans for a Palace of the People in the style of the Crystal Palace, on the site of the former Tottenham Wood Farm, were proposed by the designer Owen Jones in 1858 but did not materialise. In the following year Alexandra Park Co. Ltd. acquired the farmland for conversion to a park and to build the People’s Palace which had been proposed by Owen Jones. The park of 250 acres was opened in 1863 and named after Princess Alexandra of Denmark who had married Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), earlier that year.
Dawson Casper
2025-05-10 23:58:43
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: 3
Alexandra Palace is situated in North London and known around the world as the birthplace of television. In 1935 the Corporation leased the eastern part of the building from which the first public television transmissions were made. In 1936 it hosted trials between the EMI-Marconi and Baird television system to decide which would carry the television standard for the future. From 1936 until the early 1950s, except during the Second World War, Alexandra Palace remained the major production centre for BBC television, broadcasting landmark programmes such as The Grove Family and historic events including the 1953 Coronation.
Irma Murray
2025-05-10 23:31:08
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: 5
The imposing Alexandra Palace, with its surrounding park, sitting high on a hill in North London, has been a major leisure attraction since Victorian times. Its success spurred a plan for a similar venue in North London. In December 1858 he exhibited drawings at Vestry Hall, Piccadilly for a ‘Palace of the People, Muswell Hill’, a similar building and concept to Crystal Palace. Despite its failure to attract finance, Jones’s basic idea for a People’s Palace at Muswell Hill was to continue. The Alexandra Palace Company was formed, named in honour of the new princess, and it acquired Tottenham Wood Farm. The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures & Trade held a major world fair at South Kensington in 1862, on the site now occupied by the Natural History Museum, to showcase advances in technology. In its centre was a portico entrance and dome that had previously been features of the South Kensington exhibition. In 1868 a racecourse of a mile in length, and extensive stabling, was opened at the foot of the hill, providing a useful income.
Newell Franecki
2025-05-10 22:31:25
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: 6
Initially it was a pioneering exhibition venue.
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