BBC - Crystal Palace Plans Revealed

[HawkTheSeagull]

That's probably exactly what it's going to be. And by entertainment I'm guessing they mean a cinema/bowling alley etc with a Frankie & Bennys. It's not a Crystal Palace it's another Whitgift Centre.

Would be fun then since there is going to be a Westfield built in Croydon.

Guy building it must be pretty rich !!

 

[Lord Bracknell]

There was a second "Crystal Palace", built in 1868 in Sutton Coldfield, as part of the winter home of the Collins family - one of the big names in the world of travelling showmen. It survived, unburnt, until the 1960s. I remember it from my youth.

 

[turienzo's lovechild]

The Victorians bloody loved EXHIBITIONS didn't they

 

[MattBackHome]

The Victorians bloody loved EXHIBITIONS didn't they

Bunch of bloody SHOWOFFS.

 

[Brovion]

I never realised that the original structure burnt down; some things never change.

Indeed it did. As a boy my dad was woken up and taken to see the glow from the fire (well it passed for entertainment in pre-war Thornton Heath). The two towers survived the fire but were demolished at the start of WW2 as they could be used as landmarks by enemy bombers.

Personally I'd love to see it re-built. We used to go to the site as kids and my dad always went on about what a magnificent building it was. Oh and it burnt down the same way a brick house burns down, it was full of combustible materials and the floors were all wooden with an accumulation of rubbish under them. Apparently the glass melted and people took chunks of it for souvenirs!

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Love some of the banter here...I was ready to leap in. But seriously it was a magnifigent achievement of Victorian engineering...replace today,fine as long as the firm stumps up the cash then fine by me.

Indeed. It's actually a much nicer area than Selhurst (I can't remember if our dear friends have actually played at Crystal Palace, though an odd FA Cup Final or two was held there), and Upper Norwood is becoming seriously posh, going on the restaurants springing up and the house prices. It's also in Bromley Borough rather than Croydon, though Penge and Crystal Palace wards are just about the only ones that don't vote Tory.

Im more interested in how, in the late 19th century, with no real means of transport apart from horse and cart, they managed to move a building that size from Hyde Park to there?

I imagine by rail, as there was a line that terminated just outside (some way from the current Crystal Palace Station, which is on the Parade), and only closed in 1954, although it may be that the line was only built once the palace was moved.

Always amazed me how the Balcombe viaduct was built back in the days when there was very limited transport. You only really get the scale of it if you walk underneath.

I understand materials were brought up the Ouse, which was wider in those days, by barge, though if the materials came from below Barcombe, I don't know what they would have done about the mills and weir.