Work begins on Victorian-era Crystal Palace Subway restoration

source - News Shopper

Work begins on Victorian-era Crystal Palace Subway restoration

The good news continues on the historic buildings preservation front now with this welcome article about the planned restoration of one of the last surviving sections of the original Crystal Palace site in Sydenham Hill, London.

(I previously covered the history of the Crystal Palace building in a blog post back in 2013, when plans for a Chinese-backed full-sized replica were mooted in the national press.  Alas the scheme seems to have come to naught - although these things do take time with our current relationship with China being what it is I can't see it happening any time soon, if at all.  However there is a consolation whereby The Royal Parks - the charity responsible for the upkeep of London's Royal Parks, which includes the original Crystal Palace site of Hyde Park - has created a fantastic virtual walk-around of the long-lost building complete with fascinating historical facts about the Exhibition.)

The New High-Level Station at the Crystal Palace.
Illustrated London News (30 September 1865)
source - Victoriaweb.org

The Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station was the second of two stations opened in Sydenham after the Crystal Palace was moved there from its original location in Hyde Park following the Great Exhibition of 1851.  The first station, named Crystal Palace, was built in 1854 by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway and operated by the West End of London & Crystal Palace Railway (they liked their long names back then, clearly!).  This would be the sole station serving the Crystal Palace area until mid-1860s when the rival London, Chatham & Dover Railway muscled in (operating as the Crystal Palace & South London Junction Railway), extending its Beckenham line to include a station at the Crystal Palace site.  Built into the side of the hill on which the relocated Palace stood, the somewhat confusingly-named Crystal Palace (High Level) station was opened on the 1st August 1865, with the station building being designed by architect Edward Middleton Barry - best known for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden - and boasting a beautiful red brick and buff terracotta motif.

Crystal Palace High Level station in 1908
source - Wikimedia Commons

In the following decades the station, along with its older sibling (renamed Crystal Palace Low Level in 1898 to avoid(!) confusion) continued to develop - the High Level station being one of the first on the Southern Railway line to be electrified in 1925 - and to decant visitors to the Crystal Palace site until that building's tragic destruction in November 1936.  Both stations suffered following the loss of the Palace with passenger numbers unsurprisingly dropping substantially.  The Low Level station, being on a through line, survived the downturn in traffic and continues to exist today as Crystal Palace railway station.  The High Level station soldiered on, being used as an air raid shelter during World War Two and suffering bomb damage in May 1944, leading to its temporary closure.  Although it was repaired and reopened its status as a branch terminus, coupled with rising maintenance costs, meant the writing was on the wall and on the 20th September 1954 the line and station were closed.  Five years later, in 1961, the main station building was demolished.

source - geograph.co.uk / Robin Webster

By great good fortune the main entrance and subway vestibule escaped the wrecking ball and were accorded Grade II* listed status by English Heritage (now Historic England) in 1972, allowing the structure to survive to this day.  Although it remained sealed off and abandoned for much of the intervening years (save for occasional use as storage) the "Friends of Crystal Palace Subway" society was set up in 2013 with the aim of fully reopening it for public access (previously it had been reopened temporarily for local events organised by civic groups throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s) and bringing it back into use as a subway for the first time in over 60 years.

source - disused-stations.org.uk / Nick Catford

Now that aim looks to be a step closer with the news that survey work on the site has begun, following a grant of £2.34m from the City of London's Strategic Investment Pot and a donation from the FCPS to help restore what remains of this gorgeous and historically important structure that is the sole remaining link to the incredible building which stood nearby for over 80 years.  Everyone from the council to the architects clearly see the value in returning this forgotten gem to the community and all seem keen to pull in the right direction.  It heartens me to think that in a few years' time this wonderful piece of largely unseen Victorian architecture will have been given a new lease of life as a valuable civic amenity - in whatever form it takes - for the people of Bromley and visitors alike.  A hearty "well done" to everyone involved and I look forward to reading about - and hopefully featuring on here again - the outcome in 2022.

Plans for Crystal Palace replica

The Crystal Palace, newly re-sited on Sydenham Hill, 1854

Plans for Crystal Palace replica

This article from a couple of weeks ago, which I had originally intended to post at the time(!), details the tantalising prospect of a once-major London landmark making a reappearance in its old location.  That landmark?  The Crystal Palace!

The original façade; The Great Exhibition 1851

Built in Hyde Park in 1851 to house the Great Exhibition (a sort of Victorian World's Fair), The Crystal Palace was a symbolically massive 1,851ft long and 128ft high and made out of the then new cast plate glass.  Although originally intended to be a temporary structure, the architect Joseph Paxton's use of innovative materials and modular design - not to mention the vast size of the building - meant that at the end of the 6 month Exhibition it was decided that The Crystal Palace would be dismantled and rebuilt on Penge Common at Sydenham Hill in Bromley, south-east London (eventually lending its name to the park and the surrounding area).  In the event it was not only rebuilt but also substantially extended and redesigned, to become the building we remember today. 

Over the next 82 years The Crystal Palace would play host to many hundreds of expositions, shows, concerts, exhibitions, festivals and meetings; it moonlighted as a Royal Navy training base during the First World War and played host to the original Imperial War Museum from 1920 to 1924.



Having been saved from potential destruction in 1913 when the original owners declared bankruptcy and restored to its 19th century glory in the 1920s, disaster struck on the night of the 30th November 1936 when an explosion in a ladies' cloakroom caused an initially small fire in one of the offices.  A combination of high winds, wooden flooring that ran throughout the building and the many flammable objects - including fireworks - stored within meant that very quickly the whole place was ablaze and despite the best efforts of 400 fireman and 89 fire engines the entire structure burned to the ground in a matter of hours.  Contemporary reports show that the glow from the flames could be seen in eight counties; 100,000 people - including Winston Churchill (who later said "This is the end of an age") - turned up to watch the battling firemen trying to save it.  Unfortunately the building's insurance cover was not enough to meet the proposed cost of rebuilding, which was put at £2,000,000 (£111,000,000 in today's money).  Only the north water tower escaped destruction (the south tower also survived the fire but was dismantled shortly thereafter when it was discovered fire damage had made it structurally unsafe) - at least until 1941 when it was demolished for reasons unknown, although it was thought to possibly offer a handy landmark to German bombers.  The grounds were also used to house radar manufacturing facilities.



Now, in 2013, there seems to be a chance (albeit slight) that an exact copy of The Crystal Palace may rise Phoënix-like, as it were, on the original site thanks to a Chinese developer.  Quite what their angle is in all this (beyond the money) I'm not sure - I'm usually slightly dubious about Far East-backed concepts like this (hence the reason, apart from the somewhat questionable taste of it, that I haven't featured the proposed "Titanic II" replica stories that have been doing the rounds on the Internet in recent months).  Still it would seem that Crystal Palace Park is in need of redevelopment and the glass-and-iron wonder that gave it its name, glinting in the sunlight atop Sydenham Hill once again (I can just imagine it!) might be just the ticket (although it's early days yet, still something to keep an eye on)!