This item appeared as an entry in the Victorian publication Curiosities of London: exhibiting the most rare and remarkable objects of interest in the metropolis; with nearly sixty years personal recollections by John Timbs, John (1801-1875).
Publication date: 1867
Publisher London : J. C. Hotten
The digitised edition was scanned by the University of California Libraries.
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Although this stupendous structure is not, like its prototype, the 1851 Great Exhibition building in Hyde Park, placed within the limits of the town, the ” Curiosities of London” would scarcely be complete without some notice of the contents of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. It occupies the summit of a hill between the Brighton Railway and the Dulwich Wood, the fall from its site to the railway being 200 feet ; the main floor of the Palace being on a level with the cross at the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In its construction the materials of the 1851 Exhibition building have been employed; but it is larger than its predecessor by 1628 feet, and by nearly one-half in cubic contents. It is almost entirely of iron and glass, covers nearly 16 acres of ground; and its height from the garden-front to the top of the louvres is 208 feet, or 6 feet higher than the Monument. The nave is covered with an arched roof, raising it 44 feet higher than the nave in Hyde Park ; and the centre and two end transepts have similar roofs. From there Windsor Castle may be seen on the one side, Knockholt beeches (near Seven Oaks) on the other. Nearly 10,000 tons of iron have been used in the main building and wings ; and the superficial quantity of glass is 25 acres.
The Nave is entered at the south end, through an ornamental screen of niches filled with statues of kings and queens by John Thomas. In the area, statues are picturesquely grouped with stupendous pines, palms, and other tropical plants of luxuriant beauty, backed by the brilliant facades of the various Industrial and Fine Arts Courts. East and west are groups illustrating the ethnology, zoology, and botany of the Old and New Worlds ; and at each end is a spacious basin, for a fountain to throw up water from 70 to 200 feet. In the Courts, and dispersed throughout the building, are the works of French and Italian, German and English, Roman and Greek sculptors ; and models of celebrated ancient and modern edifices. Throughout the whole Palace are galleries devoted to the exhibition of pictures, sculpture, and other objects of fine art and industry. The most beautiful works are the Courts representing the architecture and sculpture of each nation : Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Pompeian, Alhambra, Assyrian, Byzantine, and Romanesque ; German, English, French, and Italian mediaeval ; Renais- sance, Elizabethan, Italian, &c.
The great Orchestra in the centre transept, erected for the Handel Festivals, is capable of containing four thousand performers. The Handel Festivals are held triennially. The four festivals held in 1857, 1859, 1862, and 1865, were attended by 254,231 persons, the receipts being upwards of 100,000Z. The large Organ crowning the great Orchestra was built expressly for these festivals by Messrs. Gray and Davison. In width this enormous Orchestra is double the diameter of the dome of St. Paul’s.
Up to this time — a period of between thirteen and fourteen years — the Palace has been visited by upwards of twenty-one millions of visitors. On holiday and great fete days it is no uncommon occurrence to find from 40,000 to 60,000 persons attending. On one occasion (a Forester’s fete) 83,721 visitors passed the stiles in one day.
The income of the Company annually varies from 120,000Z. to 140.000Z. per annum. Of this large sum about 20,000Z. arises from season tickets, a nearly similar amount from royalties on refreshments, and about 15,000Z. from exhibitors’ rental.
Descending across the terraces, decorated with marble vases filled with flowers and figures emblematical of all nations, to the Italian and English Landscape-Garden and the Park, we find Science and Philosophy teaching their sublime truths in a geological illustration of the Wealden formation, ” so well known in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and formerly the great metropolis of the Dinosaurian orders, or the largest of gigantic lizards :” the various strata are here represented ; and here Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, under the guiding eye of Professor Owen, has built up gigantic animals of a former world,, and in some instances restored them from fossil remains.
The series of fountains are a great attraction and are unrivalled in extent. The two largest jets throw water 240 feet in height, being in volume and extent equal to the great steeple of Bow Church, Cheapside.* The Palace, Park, Gardens, and Fountains, &c., were designed and laid out by the late Sir Joseph Paxton, M.P.
The Palace is approached by a branch from the Brighton Railway, and also by a high level railway connected with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway main stations, Victoria and Ludgate. By the latter, the entire system of the Metropolitan (Underground) Railway communicates with the Palace. Similar communication also exists by Kensington with the North London Railway. On the completion of the East London (Tunnel) Railway, the Palace will be in direct communication with all the great railways entering London, and excursions may be run from all parts of the country thereto. The building was opened by her Majesty, June 10, 1854. It has cost nearly a million and a half of money; and in grandeur of purpose is a marvel of enlightened enterprise.
The contents of the Palace are all that its magic-suggestive name promises. For picturesque effects we have fountains and fishpools, flowers and plants ; for art-teaching purposes we have statues and paintings, with nooks of Spain, Pompeii, Nineveh, and Egypt ; for examples of industrial arts, manufactures from all the civilized nations. In this building we can again take art from its cradle in Assyria or Egypt, and trace, after its long sojourn on the banks of the Nile, its progress through Greece and Borne, and during the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance. No need to draw upon the imagination. Here are casts and faithful representations of the most important objects that modern research has discovered. The English artisan, with little time for study, and less hope of travel, is, by this means, made acquainted with the works of races whose names were unknown to his forefathers, and familiar with antediluvian monsters, whose pre-Adamite existence was but faintly shadowed out in the griffins and dragons of romance.
* A portion of the north end of the Palace was destroyed by fire caused by the explosion of gas in the flues heating the 50 miles of hot-water pipes within the Palace, on Sunday, December 30, 1866 : a considerable portion of the damaged part has, however, already been reconstructed.