I Really Should Invent That Time Machine

I’ve read back my post about the Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs and I wouldn’t like to give the impression that I think that Crystal Palace Park itself isn’t a great place to visit, because it is. I haven’t been back for over 20 years, but I remember taking my kids there for a day out once when we were visiting my mum in Tottenham. Well, all of my kids are in their thirties now so that will give you an idea of how long ago. You know, the thing I enjoyed most about that visit, was walking up the steps that led to where the Palace itself was, and taking a good look at the sheer size of the footprint it had and letting my imagination run wild.

The Crystal Palace. 1900. The water tower on the left of the picture was a later addition by IK Brunel.

You see, I find the Crystal Palace itself very interesting. When I invent my time machine (honestly, it would be a lot easier if my future self who builds it would just pop back in time and leave me the blueprints) it will probably be the second place that I visit. What, the first? Oh, that would be Old London Bridge – which I would visit twice, firstly in about 1400 just after the remodelling of the Chapel of St. Thomas a Becket, and the second about 1629, just before the fire which destroyed the northern end, while Nonsuch House was in all its glory. But I’d love to see the Crystal Palace.

I’ll never know of course, but it’s not impossible that some of my ancestors might have visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. A set of my 3x great grandparents and their family were living in Hammersmith down the road at the time. Then I remember my own grandmother talking about the Crystal Palace burning down in 1936. 

1936. After the fire but prior to demolition of the remains. Brunel's water tower remained until it was destroyed during World War 2.

I don’t recall her saying she had ever visited it, but again, it’s not impossible.

I will be honest, it’s the building itself that really interests me most, but I became interested in what remains from the Great Exhibition. If we take Old London Bridge, even though it was demolished in 1831 there are remnants of it to be seen if you know where to look. Well, I don’t know of any remnants of the original Palace building other than what’s there in Crystal Palace Park. However, as regards the exhibits within the Palace, well, that’s a different story. The Victoria and Albert Museum, whose creation was a direct result of the Exhibition, has tons of them, over 3000, I believe. But one exhibit that I have seen many times but never previously knew it was an exhibit in the Great Exhibition is in another well known London location, and it’s a clock.

It’s not Big Ben, mind you, and yes, I know that the name strictly speaking belongs to the bell, not the clock. But it’s not even the clock within the Elizabeth Tower if you want me to be that specific. No, apparently, the clock in the tower above the entrance to King’s Cross Station was an exhibit in the Great Exhibition. You know, it definitely could be. The dating works – Kings Cross was built in 1852, the year after the Great Exhibition. The contractor who built Kings Cross, Lewis Cubitt, was the same contractor who erected the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.

Kings Cross Station c. 1910

I’ll be honest, I look at the façade of King’s Cross, and in terms of its design I find it hard to believe that it wasn’t built decades later than it was. The restraint and lack of ornamentation seems distinctly unVictorian, especially when you contrast it with the gothic splendour of the Midland Grand Hotel atop St. Pancras station – which is actually younger than King’s Cross.

Coming back to my time machine, the third and fourth different locations I would want to visit would be another London station, and the spiritual successor of the Great Exhibition. Third on my list would be the original Euston Station, specifically the Doric Arch that stood at the entrance.

Euston Station Doric Arch c. 1900

In terms of my own life, this was a near miss, as it was demolished just two years before I was born. The original Euston was the first terminus to be built north of the River Thames and construction began in 1837. Putting this into perspective, this was the same year that Queen Victoria came to the throne. London Bridge station, south of the River, had opened the year before. 1837 was a mere 8 years after the opening of the world’s first inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

By the time that the reference photograph I used to help with this sketch was taken Euston was already over half a century old. It’s tempting to imagine the awe that visitors exiting the station in those first decades must have felt .

The first threat to the arch came in the late 1930s when a radical plan to rebuild the station was drawn up, which would have involved moving the arch at the very least. The second world war put paid to this, however it only turned out to be a stay of execution. Despite the fact that both station and arch were grade II listed, the plan for the current station wee put forward in about 1960, and nobody in officialdom showed any appetite whatsoever for moving the arch to a new home. The London County Council balked at the cost, and Transport Minister Ernie Marples said all options for not demolishing the arch had been carefully examined and rejected. This was the same Ernie Marples whose company built motorways – not that he was at all biased, you understand. Pleas from great men such as Sir John Betjeman to be given time to raise the money to meet the cost of removing the arch and storing it until such time as a new home could be found for it were ignored.

Contrary to how it might seem from what I’ve just written, I do appreciate that you cannot keep things just because they have been there a long time. Otherwise we’d all be living in Bronze Age roundhouses.  But I do think that there was a very strong case for keeping the Euston Arch and I point my finger at those who made the decision and rushed to demolition, and am happy to say that you have let down the people you were working for and sold all our birthright for a mess of concrete.

As for my 4^th location, that would be the South Bank complex at the time of the 1951 Festival of Britain. It’s ironic that a politician who was heavily involved in the decisions to demolish the beautiful Waterloo Bridge, the London County Council’s Herbert Morrison, was the prime mover behind the Festival of Britain. By the end of the second world war Morrison, having been Home Secretary during the wartime coalition, had become Leader of the House of Commons in the Labour Government that followed, often deputising for Clement Atlee. Morrison picked up on the 1943 proposal from the Arts Council to hold an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Great Exhibition.

1951 Festival Of Britain Dome of Discovery and Skylon

This didn’t become a world’s fair or expo – of which the Great Exhibition is often said to be the first – because post war Britain couldn’t afford it. The festival, then, as the name suggests, had no international or Commonwealth aspect to it, but was envisaged as a symbol of a Britain starting to recover from the devastation of the second world war.

There were Festival of Britain events staged in every country of the UK, but the focus was on the South Bank complex, and this is what my sketch represents. The two most visible symbols of the Festival in the sketch were the Skylon, a strange, needle-like construction that seemingly balanced in mid-air, and the Dome of Discovery.

In terms of sheer numbers the Festival was a great success, with 10 million tickets sold to events. In terms of architectural legacy though it’s a little more difficult to quantify. Very little of what was built for the Festival remained there for long after the Festival ended. The Royal Festival Hall is a grade I listed building, although to be honest it’s far from one of my favourite London buildings if I’m honest. However the Festival did promote contemporary British architecture and surely influenced some of the interesting buildings of the 50s and early 60s in the UK.

The Festival did little to help the Labour Government, mind you. The Government called a snap election in the hope of increasing their majority from the 1950 election. Despite winning more votes than any other party, the vagaries of the British electoral system meant that the Conservative Party won a working majority of seats, and Winston Churchill, who thought that the Festival of Britain had been a ridiculous idea became Prime Minister again.

If you had a time machine - where would YOU go?