Alexandra Palace — The People’s Palace

Alexandra Palace, affectionately known as Ally Pally, is one of North London’s best known places of interest. The Alexandra Palace complex is situated on a high hill in the north of the city between the residential suburbs of Muswell Hill and Wood Green. The palace can be reached by bus and train, with the two closest stations being Wood Green on the Piccadilly Line and Alexandra Palace Station part of the Great Northern Railway Network. The original palace structure crowning the complex to this day was officially completed in 1873. Unfortunately though a devastating fire ravaged the main palace building just two years later. In result, Alexandra Palace had to be rebuilt pretty much from the ground up thus the building seen today. The palace’s main purpose was to be North London’s answer to the Crystal Palace in South London. Originally the venue and complex were intended for public recreation, education and entertainment.

Alexandra Palace — Overview

Alexandra Palace was dubbed The People’s Palace, rumour has it that Gracie Jones was the one who gave the palace its nickname Ally Pally. The palace’s specific location which is on top of a hill part of an elevated land mass in North London made it an ideal location for sending and receiving radio signals hence the BBC quickly came to appreciate the value of one such place for relaying radio and television signals.

· Fact — Alexandra Palace is where the first regular high definition television broadcast took place in 1936, thanks to the BBC.

· Fact — The radio and television mast (big antenna) used by the BBC studios is still sitting atop one of the palace roofs.

The BBC’s television studios at Alexandra Palace were superseded by more important facilities in the course of World War Two but the studios remained operational for many years after. The A and B studios have been subsequently turned into galleries exhibiting vintage television equipment. Another form of entertainment at the Palace was a proper Victorian theatre which staged shows for the public in the early days of Ally Pally. Today, the theatre still survives with most of its stage equipment intact. However the theatre structure has been entered into English Heritage’s Buildings At Risk register. In 1996 Alexandra Palace became a Grade Listed Building, the initiative was headed and seen through by Hornsey Historical Society.

19th Century — The Beginning

Ally Pally was conceived as a project in 1860 with the founding of the Great Northern Palace Company. Things were moving ahead slow but since the company was having hard time raising the funds needed for the build. About two years later the funds were eventually secured and on 23rd of July 1863 Alexandra Park opened to the public for the first time. The actual palace building though was yet to be constructed.

· Fact — The Palace is named after Alexandra, the Danish princess who married Prince Edward earlier that same year.

· Fact — Originally the complex was supposed to be called The Palace of The People, but alternative names like The People’s Palace were also officialised so to say.

Construction of the Palace building itself began in 1865, about two years after Alexandra Park. One of the architects Owen Jones who worked on the initial building design proposed a glass and steel structure similar to the one of Crystal Palace in South London. The proposal was rejected though and the design was changed to that of architects Alfred Meeson and John Johnson. Work on the palace and park took some years to complete. The entire complex was completed in early 1873. The Palace building covers an area of seven and a half acres. In the eighteen seventies work also began on a designated railway line which was to connect Alexandra to Highgate Station.

· Fact — Ally Pally was built by the Lucas Brothers who were also responsible for building Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington.

· Fact — The foremost English tenor of the day — Sims Reeves sang at the opening ceremony of the palace before a crowd of more than one hundred thousand people.

Unfortunately, the initial glory and beauty of the palace was short lived as only sixteen days after its opening the building was destroyed by a large and devastating fire. The tragedy took three lives. Only the outer walls of the original palace building remained standing. An extensive collection (an exhibit) of antique porcelain was also destroyed in the fire. However, with vigour typical to the Victorian era, Ally Pally was quickly rebuild and reopened on the 1st of May 1875. The new Alexandra Palace as it came to be called was a vast complex featuring a museum, art galleries, concert halls, lecture hall, library, large banquet hall and of course a theatre.

· Fact — The palace theatre made use of hi-tech (for its time) stage machinery which allowed for so called special effects to be included in the shows played there.

The 20th Century

The brief of Ally Pally’s twentieth century history goes something like this — in 1900 for one reason or another, palace owners were about to sell the complex for redevelopment. It did not come to that though as a group of spirited local men formed a consortium to save the complex from the builders. The committee was able to raise funds and buy off the park grounds and building just in time thus saving Alexandra for the people. During WWI Alexandra Palace became part of the war effort — the complex was closed to the public and repurposed as a refugee camp for displaced Belgians. Afterwards, in the years between 1915 and 1919 the palace was refurbished as an internment camp to house German and Austrian nationals. In 1935 the BBC acquired part of the main palace building and set up a radio and television studio complex. During the WWII years, the palace and its radio equipment was used to jam and intercept radio signals of German bombers. Ally Pally did not escape the war unscathed though as a German V1 flying bomb aka doodlebug hit the building and left its musical organ exposed to the elements. One of the highlights in Ally Pally’s 20th century history must be in 1960 when an outside broadcast from the very top of the building was used to observe and report on the first ever satellite crossing the skies over London.

Alexandra Palace is one of the best known sights of North London and a source of entertainment and culture for many people. If considering a household relocation somewhere in the area, by all means use the services of some reputable house removal teams in North London — you will save money and have your removal handled properly by qualified staff.