The roof of the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace 1863–1986

Abstract

The origins of the roof of the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace go back to Owen Jones' project for a ‘Palace of the People’ to be built at Muswell Hill, published in the Illustrated London News in 1860, as North London's answer to the Crystal Palace which had newly moved to Sydenham. This was not built, but in response to public request, when the Great Exhibition of 1862 was dismantled, a large section including one of the lateral domes was erected at Muswell Hill to form the first Alexandra Palace. This was done under the direction of the architects, Meeson & Johnson, who produced the water colour painting now held at the Palace illustrating the project viewed from the north (Photo A). The building consisted of a long nave running east‐west with three transepts, the largest in the centre being on the site of the present Great Hall with the crossing crowned by the mammoth dome raised higher than it had been at South Kensington by the introduction of an upper clerestorey level (Figure 1). The diameter of the dome was approximately 160 ft —larger than either the Pantheon (143 ft) or St Peter's (138 ft) in Rome.