Ally Pally burned twice, hosted a racecourse, and launched regular public television
Sixteen days after 102,000 people turned up for its grand opening, the north London People's Palace was a shell. It rose again, later housed wartime internees, jammed German bombers' navigation with a TV transmitter, and in 1936 became home to the world's first regular high-definition public television service.
Owen Jones dreamed up a Palace of the People in 1859, picturing a glass structure. Money was the obstacle. The Great Northern Palace Company could not finance it, so materials were salvaged from the demolished 1862 International Exhibition building in South Kensington, and in 1863 a new company bought Tottenham Wood Farm on a ridge above 300 feet high. That same year the project was renamed for Alexandra of Denmark, who wed the future Edward VII on 10 March 1863. Building began in September 1865 to a design by John Johnson and Alfred Meeson, with Kelk and Lucas, builders of the Royal Albert Hall, doing the work.
It opened on 24 May 1873, covering some 7.5 acres, with tenor Sims Reeves singing. A fire soon gutted it and killed three staff; only the outer walls remained. Reopened on 1 May 1875, the new palace held galleries, a library, a museum and a theatre whose stage machinery could make pantomime performers vanish or fly. Outside lay London's only racecourse from 1868 to 1970, nicknamed the Frying Pan for its shape, plus a Japanese village and a boating lake.
When owners threatened to sell for redevelopment in 1900, a consortium led by Henry Burt raised the money, and an Act of Parliament bound trustees to keep palace and park free for public recreation forever. During the First World War it sheltered Belgian refugees and then, from 1915 to 1919, interned German and Austrian civilians.
In 1935 the BBC leased part of the building, and broadcasts began in November 1936, with Marconi-EMI's 405-line system competing against John Logie Baird's 240-line one. It stayed London's main transmitter until 1956. Haringey took over as trustee in 1980, insuring it for 31 million pounds, and six months later a blaze under the organ during a jazz festival destroyed half the building. Its lightning-bolt coat of arms still honours that television past, and the mast remains in use.
Source: Alexandra Palace
