Encyclopedia
- The Crystal Palace is also a fantasy novel by Phyllis Eisenstein.
A huge iron and glass building,
The Crystal Palace was originally erected in
Hyde Park in
19th Century Britain to house the
Great Exhibition of 1851.
After the exhibition it was moved to
Upper Norwood where it was enlarged, and stood from 1854 until 1936. It attracted many thousands of visitors from all levels of society. The name "Crystal Palace" was coined by the satirical magazine
Punch.
The name was later adopted by
Crystal Palace Football Club and generally to denote that
area of south London.
Original Hyde Park building
The huge
glass and
iron structure at the top of Sydenham Hill was originally erected in
Hyde Park in
London to house
The Great Exhibition, embodying the products of many countries throughout the world.
Seen in its grand magnificence, the new Crystal Palace again displayed the
genius of its creator,
Joseph Paxton, who was
knighted in recognition of his work. Paxton had been head gardener at Chatsworth, in
Derbyshire, where he had befriended its owner, the
Duke of Devonshire. Here he had
experimented with
glass and
iron in the creation of large
greenhouses, and had seen something of their strength and durability. He applied this knowledge to the plans for the
Great Exhibition building — with astounding results. Planners had been looking for strength, durability, simplicity of construction and speed — and this they got from Paxton's ideas. According to the 2004
Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Paxton was partly inspired by the organic structure of the Amazonian lily
Victoria regia is a studio album by Amazon [i], released in 2005. ...
, which he successfully cultivated".
The Crystal Palace was built by about 5,000 navvies who worked very hard for very little and completed their tasks quickly. Their welfare became the concern of Catherine Marsh, who noticed the poor conditions they were working in and treatment they received: she spared no effort to see that they received fair and just treatment. She made sure that meals were provided for them.
The 900,000 square feet of glass was provided by the Chance Brothers glassworks in Smethwick,
Birmingham. They were the only glassworks capable of fulfilling such a large order, and had to bring in labour from France to meet it in time.
Relocation
The life of the Great Exhibition was limited to six months, and something then had to be done with the building. Against the wishes of
Parliamentary opponents of anything to do with the scheme, the edifice was re-erected on a property named Penge Place which had been excised from Penge Common atop Sydenham Hill. It was much modified and enlarged, and within two years
Queen Victoria again performed an opening
ceremony.
Two
railway stations were opened to serve the permanent exhibition. The Low Level Station is still in use today as
Crystal Palace railway station, and part of the High Level Station, a subway which gave access to the Parade area, can also still be seen with its
Italian mosaic roofing. This subway is also a Grade II
listed building.
There is an apocryphal story, popular amongst local schoolchildren, that the Crystal Palace High Level Station was closed because a commuter train was trapped by a tunnel collapse and remains there to this day. In reality the closure was a scheduled part of the decline of the railway network in the 1950s.
Water features
Joseph Paxton was first and foremost a gardener, and his layout of
gardens,
fountains, terraces and cascades left no doubt as to his ability. One thing he did have a problem with was water supply. Such was his enthusiasm that thousands of gallons of water were needed in order to feed the myriad fountains and cascades which abounded in the Crystal Palace park. The two main jets were 250 feet high.
Initially
water towers were constructed, but the weight of water in the raised tanks caused them to collapse. And so
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was consulted and came up with the plans for two mighty water towers, one at the north and the other at the south end of the building. Each supported a tremendous load of water which was gathered from three reservoirs at either end of and the middle of the park.
Two years later, the grand fountains and cascades were opened, again in the presence of the Queen — who got wet when a gust of wind swept mists of spray over the Royal carriage.
Attractions
Among the attractions were the
dinosaurs, life-size models designed and made by
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, situated by the Lower lakes, near the
Anerley entrance. These are still there today, although it is now known that they are anatomically inaccurate. A dinner party for 22 was held by Hawkins inside one of the
Iguanodon statues. The Victorian statues were renovated in a £4,000,000 project. They were officially unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh in 2002.
The exhibits included just about every marvel of the
Victorian Age, encompassing the products of many countries throughout the world. There was
pottery and
porcelain; ironwork and
furniture; steam hammers and hydraulic presses;
perfumes and
pianos; houses and diving suits;
firearms and
barometers;
fabrics and
fireworks — and much more including a walking stick containing an
enema!
Queen
Victoria loved the place and said she found it 'enchanting'. This was to some extent due to the degree of esteem in which she held the ultimate architect of its fortunes, her beloved husband,
Prince Albert.
Most
FA Cup finals in the early years of the competition were held in the Crystal Palace Park. The last to be held there was in 1914 when
George V became the first reigning monarch to watch the final. Even before the creation of the
Crystal Palace F.C., a team bearing the name Crystal Palace played in the competition. Players came from the staff of the Crystal Palace.
Decline
The fortunes of the Crystal Palace began to decline when the place ran down and money was not available for maintenance. This was to a large extent due to the failure to obtain sufficient money by way of admission fees, in turn due to the inability to cater for a large portion of the population. The mass of people who would gladly visit the Palace were unable to do so because the only day on which they could get away from work was Sunday, and Sunday was the day on which the Palace was firmly closed. No amount of protest had any effect: the Lord's Day Observance Society held that people should not be encouraged to work at the Palace or drive transport on Sunday, and that if people wanted to visit, then their employers should give them time off during the working week. This, naturally, they would not do.
There was a Festival of Empire in 1911, to mark the
coronation of
George V and
Queen Mary, but things went from bad to worse, and two years later the 1st
Earl of Plymouth purchased the Palace for the nation to save it from developers.
In the
Great War it was used as a naval training establishment under the name of
HMS Victory VI, informally known as
HMS Crystal Palace. At the cessation of hostilities it was re-opened as the first
Imperial War Museum. Sir Henry Buckland took over as General Manager, and things began to look up, many former attractions being resumed, including the Thursday evening displays of
fireworks by Brocks.
Destruction by fire
On 30 November, 1936 came the final catastrophe. Within hours,
fire consumed all that had stood for a mighty
empire and boundless imagination. The Palace was destroyed, the fire was seen for miles and thousands of people saw the night sky light up by the flames. Just as in 1866 when a fire burnt down the north
transept, the building was not adequately insured to cover the cost of rebuilding.
Winston Churchill on his way home from the
House of Commons said: "This is the end of an age".
The South Tower had been used for tests by
television pioneer
John Logie Baird for his mechanical television experiments. Unfortunately for him, much of his work was destroyed in the fire.
In memoriam
All that was left standing were the two
water towers, and these were taken down during
World War II. The reason given was that the
Germans could use them to
navigate their way to
London. The
north one was dynamited, while the
south one was taken down
brick by brick as it was very close to other buildings.
After the war, the site was used for a number of purposes. Between 1953 and 1973 a motor car racing circuit operated on the site with some race meetings supported by the
Greater London Council.
The Crystal Palace Foundation was created in 1979 to keep alive the memory and respect for this epic age in Britain's history. Discussion regarding its future continues, various plans have been put forward but none have been put into action on the Top Site.
The park which surrounds the site is now home to
Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.
The design of the Crystal Palace has inspired many latter-day construction projects, such as the
Dallas, Texas-based
Infomart.
Crystal Palace in popular culture
The Crystal Palace made a strong impression on the visitors coming from all over Europe, including a number of writers. It soon became a symbol of modernity and civilization, hailed by some and decried by others.
- French author Valéry Larbaud left a short text describing his impressions of the Crystal Palace.
- In What is to be done?, Russian author and philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky pledges to transform the society into a Crystal Palace thanks to a socialist revolution.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky implicitly replied to Chernyshevsky in Notes from Underground. The narrator thinks that human nature will prefer destruction and chaos to the harmony symbolized by the Crystal Palace.
- The Palace was seen in the 2004 anime film Steam Boy, and it was also featured in the 2005 anime series Eikoku Koi Monogatari Emma.
- Following damage during World War II the replacement for the East window in St John the Evangelist in Penge High Street features an idyllic view of the local landscape at the time the church was built, including the Crystal Palace.
- The Crystal Palace serves as the location in the finale of the fantasy book Ptolemy's Gate.
- Italian writer Alessandro Baricco incorporated the Crystal Palace into his novel Land of glass using a mixture of fiction and facts.
- German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk uses the Crystal Palace as a metaphor for the European project.
- The distinctive skyscraper at 30 St Mary Axe, London, picked up the nickname of The Crystal Phallus due to its shape, and as a play on the name Crystal Palace.
See also
...
External links
-
- - map of the park as it is now
-
- on Sir Joseph Paxton - includes photgraphs
including Victorian maps showing the palace
References
